


Peril's Destiny

by canonkiller



Series: Wings of Fire Rewrite [1]
Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-02-28 12:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 42,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13271778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canonkiller/pseuds/canonkiller
Summary: Peril's grateful for being welcomed into Jade Mountain Academy, but between being too old for a Winglet placement (not that she's very interested in schoolwork, if she's being honest) and having every dragon that recognizes her be someone who's mourning someone killed in Scarlet's arena, she can't really feel like she's fitting in.When someone sets off a bomb in one of the classrooms, and a group of students are injured, Peril sees her chance to do something useful and sets off on a mission to find the perpetrator and protect the school. Along the way, she'll find herself among concerned peers, mourning royalty, a set of secretive SandWing siblings, and a plot for power that may have her in well over her orange-scaled head.-----A fix-it fanfiction taking place shortly after the beginning of Moon RisingMinor additional content warnings for abuse, canon-typical violence, minor / past character death, and detailed descriptions of breakdowns and traumatic experiences.





	1. Prologue

Peril watched in horror, uncomprehending, as her mother turned her great red back to her fiery dragonet and hid her brother from her sight. Even with the adult SkyWing’s body blocking her view, she still heard her brother’s confused voice be cut off by a snap that chilled her bones even under her burning scales, and nobody could hide the sight of her brother’s creamy pale body being pulled away by the river Kestrel mournfully dropped his body in.

Her mother turned to her, mouth gaping in grief, and reached for her remaining dragonet, not caring about how much the touch might burn her. Peril took a step back, eyes wide in fear, but it was Scarlet who stopped Kestrel in her tracks. 

“Well, she’s taken one of the runts off of our claws,” the Queen crooned, her tone making Peril’s scales itch. The red queen raised a dangerous claw, and waved it dismissively. “Kill them both.”

The small dragonet - for even with Scarlet’s mocking, she  _ was  _ small for her age - tore her gaze from her desperate mother, seeking some kind of safety in the ring of dragons in Scarlet’s entourage. While some of them looked doubtful about attacking her, they didn’t seem doubtful enough to go against their Queen’s orders. 

Kestrel moved first, her wings pushing aside the guards closest to them as she tackled into Peril’s tiny frame. Her mother didn’t even cry out, despite Peril being able to feel her body melting the scales off of Kestrel’s chest and arms. Her mother tried desperately to take to the air, tail lashing to clear a space wide enough for her to spread her wings without being ripped to shreds. 

Peril screamed wordlessly, struggling against her mother’s claws that so easily killed her brother only moments before. Kestrel was in no state to calm her, only just getting off of the ground, the palms of her hands and her inner arms reduced to black char as Peril pressed herself against them. 

Peril struck out with a paw, scoring a lucky hit across her mother’s cheek; the heat wasn’t strong enough to damage her eye, but it was a sensitive enough spot that the adult dragon instinctively lifted a claw to protect it. Peril gave one final kick against her mother’s chest, and her other talon couldn’t hold her any longer.

The orange dragonet crashed to the ground, rolling across the rocks slick from the river, and came to a stop in a shallow puddle. Steam swallowed her up so quickly she barely had time to look back towards her mother, but she heard Scarlet’s monstrous shriek, and she cowered in the mist as two of the guards were sent to hunt Kestrel down.

Peril was beyond terrified when the remaining two guards and the Queen herself walked over to her. One of the guards - much younger than the other, Peril managed to notice - lifted the two-pronged spear from his side and pinned her down with it, the metal softening but not melting as it rested around her narrow neck. She knew instantly that if he was ordered to kill her, he would crush her throat before she could even blink.

Queen Scarlet glared angrily after her airborne guards before turning to the dragonet pinned at her feet with a sickeningly joyful smile. “I’ve changed my mind. I think you alone will be just  _ perfect _ .”


	2. PART ONE

* * *

  

\- Part One -

**Out From Under The Mountain**

 

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 1

A gentle rainfall had settled over the lush, ancient maw of Jade Mountain’s twin peaks, bringing with it the damp smell of dozens of kinds of wildflowers blooming across the lowlands, and Peril was infuriated at all of it.

“And don’t even get me started about the FOG it makes!” She shouted, whipping her tail across the stone floor of the cafeteria and sending sparks skittering under the empty tables. Her only companion in the discussion was Clay, calmly clearing the tables of the post-lunch mess, and anyone who had returned to grab a snack between classes had decided rather rapidly that they were actually not very hungry at all.

If Peril had noticed any of the appearing-and-rapidly-disappearing dragonets in her rage, she didn’t make any acknowledgement of them. “Every SINGLE time it rains, I’m trapped inside, or people think I’m a CLOUD and end up flying into me and then they nearly fall out of the sky because they just crashed into a dragon with FIRESCALES because nobody can LOOK where they’re GOING!”

“I believe Glory has one of the younger Winglets out for flying practice on the northern slope this period,” Clay replied, his demeanor the easy gentleness of someone who had been subject to more than enough conflict and very much would prefer avoiding any in the future. “I don’t think any of the older dragonets in their right mind would try to fly with a bunch of them struggling around, and the younger ones aren’t likely to go above the foothills. You could fly out there.”

“That’s not the POINT and you KNOW IT.” Peril shouted, stopping her angry pacing and throwing herself down beside one of the tables. In a rather ordinary, respectable way, she lay down with her talons tucked underneath the platform, and then returned to her dramatic crumple and lay her head on the table, looking up balefully from under the redder ridges above her eyes. “I can’t even _fly_ without the chance of crashing into someone, and that’s with the _whole sky_ to avoid me in.”

Clay stacked a pile of stoneware dishes, only pausing to look at her once he was sure they were balanced. “I’ve told you before, Peril, you saved my friends. I trust you, and I care about you. I can’t let you fly off without having anywhere to fly off _to_. The war only ended a year ago, there’s still a lot of dragons out there who would take a chance on killing you for… what happened.”

Peril’s talons pressed into her palms under the table. He’d avoided the subject, the same way he avoided mentioning the time under the mountain to his adopted siblings, or the way he admitted he had planned the timetables of his MudWing siblings to make sure they didn’t have any IceWing teachers, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from remembering the screams of so many dragons, of so much blood, of eating stones that clogged her throat and nose with dust so that _maybe next time they wouldn’t die so terribly, maybe next time it wouldn’t be a massacre, maybe -_

“- don’t even let Tsunami go out beyond the school grounds without some kind of guard, and I think half the SeaWings here are on secret royal orders to keep her and Anemone safe, and it’s _Tsunami_.” Clay continued, having missed Peril’s silent recall. She forced herself to listen to his even voice, using it to remind her that things had changed. “If you’re going anywhere, you should know where you’re going, and at least take one other person with you who could find help if something went wrong.”

“You’re the only dragon I know that could go with me, and you know it.” Peril sighed, her ire having cooled into a familiar disappointment. “What good is a guard when I might kill them just by rolling over in my sleep?”

“You’re not as hot when you sleep, they’d wake up before any harm was done.” Clay loaded the next stack of dishes on to the rolling tray he used to bring them back into the kitchen. “Want to help with cleaning? Four talons are better than two.”

“No, I’ll just… be around.” She bit her lip, feeling guilty about not taking up his offer, but she knew he’d just try to make her feel better, and she really didn’t want to have another dragon nearby. “Might go down to the caves and swim for a bit. At least down there, I might heat the school up.”

Either Clay missed the undercurrent of ‘might actually be useful’, or he decided it was better off ignored. He gave her an understanding smile, and turned back to his cart of dishes, resting a wing against it so he could push it off. “I’ll save some dinner for you if you’re not back by then.”

She nodded and left, her scales cooled back to their usual faintly-glowing orange. The halls of Jade Mountain Academy were well-lit, with a combination of torchlight and strategically placed windows, but she still felt like she was glowing in the dark, especially when she heard Clay greet a dragonet walking into the cafeteria as soon as the tip of her tail was outside of the door.

Peril couldn’t blame them for being scared of her, but that didn’t make it any easier. Because of the war, most of the dragons her age were working on rebuilding their homes or collecting scattered family members, and Jade Mountain only had a clawful of students older than six. If students recognized her, it was more likely because an older sibling or relative died to her talons, and after the first few times she’d had a dragonet break down in tears at the sight of her, she’d restricted her hallway-wandering to during class time, and secluded herself when other dragons were more likely to be around.

She bumped her wing against a door someone had left open, and hissed in irritation. The second reason for avoiding dragonets is because her body wandered as much as her mind did. Living in isolation or on the battlefield didn’t do wonders for spacial awareness.

Peril stopped suddenly as she smelled something strange on the air. It was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. Some kind of plant cooking, maybe? Confused, she backed up a few paces, looking into the open doorway. It seemed like it was just one of the storage rooms.

Thinking someone must have forgotten a snack behind one of the shelves, Peril stepped into the tiny room. She regretted it almost instantly as she realized, by the light of her own scales, that she was surrounded by scrolls. Very _flammable_ scrolls. “Did it HAVE to be the history cave?!” She shouted, mostly to herself.

“Is something wrong in there?” Someone called from nearby, their voice muffled by the wall.

Peril cursed herself, silently this time, for forgetting that the storage rooms had doors to the classrooms in them as well as the hallways. “No, no, everything’s fine! Just a weird… smell…”

Peril trailed off as her train of thought was stalled entirely by seeing the source of the smell; the round shape of a dragonflame cactus, a tool she’d seen used in the arena by SkyWings who wanted to cause the most agony possible before making a killing blow. Her heart dropped into her talons as she realized that it was already lit, and the seams were on the brink of bursting. Instantly, all she could see was blood, so much blood, her talons and scales coated in it in the moments before it turned to ash, SkyWings in the stands lobbing the bombs into the arena to make it, in Scarlet’s words, _just a little more exciting_.

Wild with fear, Peril rushed for the opposite door, too cramped to turn around to the hallway. She reached it just as the dragonet on the other side opened it in confusion. Peril had time to recognize she was slamming into an older SkyWing dragonet the color of rust before they collided, rolling head over heels into the classroom on the other side, and stopped with Peril’s body pinning the other dragonet against the wall.

Her brain still locked in the blind terror of her memories, she tried to twist away, only to be blasted with sound and heat and thorns across her flank as the cactus exploded, throwing burning scrolls across the thankfully nearly empty classroom. Peril let out a painful, wordless scream of agony as the thorns buried deep into her scales before being burned apart, the wounds sealing themselves over almost as soon as they were opened.

She didn’t realize she had whited out, but next thing she knew Clay had her pinned on the floor on her back, his talons on the arms of her wings and with one hind claw on her tail, keeping it from lashing. His voice was rough and trembling, and after a few moments of bewildered staring she realized the room was far smokier than she ever made it, and Clay was… crying?

“W… what…?” She tried to lift her head, but found it nauseating. She let herself fall limply to the ground.

“You have a concussion,” Clay tried to tell her, but his voice was unsteady enough, and she couldn’t quite keep her eyes open. “One of the students is getting dragons from the infirmary. There’s been an attack. Stay awake.”

But she couldn’t.


	4. Chapter 2

Peril awoke on a slab of pale stone, her head throbbing. Slowly, she pushed herself up, awkwardly hunching over as she struggled to make sense of what had happened. She’d gone to the history cave, because someone had left food in there. She didn’t think the smell had been so bad as to knock her out… and _definitely_ not bad enough to drag her down to get medical help.

She looked around the cave, trying to puzzle out what had happened. As the minutes ticked past, the pain in her head cleared, and she was able to actually take in her surroundings. The beds around her were all bare - sensible, really, SkyWings had a pretty large struggle radius, and she wouldn’t want some kid with a cold to get firescales across the face, AND she’d already ended up with her tail draped over one of them - but on the other side the room, closest to the wall with all the little holes for supplies to be tucked into, three dragonets were each on beds of their own.

One of them was awake, but lying belly-up on their bed. A RainWing, most likely, as her scales were pale but dancing with weak patches of more hopeful colors. Peril had seen her around before, and while she wasn’t sure what her name was, she knew Glory was secretly fond of her (Glory was secretly fond of ALL of the RainWing students, and possibly the rest of the students too) and was glad she was well enough to feel up to talking to the greenish-black NightWing anxiously hunched beside her. Peril could feel the NightWing dragonets’ eyes on her as she squinted across the room to the other beds, pausing to rub the softer pads of her paws against her eyes.

The other two injured dragonets weren’t moving or talking to anyone, unlike the RainWing. One was a NightWing she didn’t think she’d ever seen before; kind of purpley (but still black) and rather plump. He had bandages wrapped around his face, neck, and parts of his chest and wings. Peril had seen enough battle wounds to decide that these were sparse enough that they were mostly to keep him from panicking when he awoke rather than any real damage, but he’d probably have some scarring by the end of the ordeal.

The remaining dragonet was a SkyWing, a rusty red... or at least, as far as Peril could tell from between the mass of bandages that covered most of the dragonet’s body. She was large enough that Peril assumed she was almost an adult, or had just become one. As Peril looked at her, her memory slowly started returning. The cactus bomb, crashing into a student, the explosion, Clay -

If her firescales were stronger when she was angry, they should have been extinguished completely by the tidal wave of fear and guilt in her gut. She consoled herself with the fact that if the student was _dead_ , she wouldn’t be here - but that didn’t mean she was going to survive. How much had been the fault of the bomb, and how much had been _her_ fault?

“It would have been worse if you didn’t hit her,” the NightWing said suddenly, her gentle voice carrying clearly across the otherwise silent room. Peril’s head whipped around to face her, and the NightWing dragonet yelped and pulled her head down under her wings. Peril opened her mouth to question her, but the RainWing cast her a hard, serious glare that stopped the attempt in a heartbeat.

The RainWing mumbled something to the NightWing that Peril couldn’t hear, and then rolled over to face Peril. She smiled, flashing bright white fangs, and her scales absolutely flooded with a brilliant yellow and pink. “I overheard the teachers talking, just like she did. You know Starflight, Glory’s brother? He just wouldn’t stop talking about that plant while he was checking on Carnelian and Bigtail, and when the others started getting really upset he kept repeating that burn were easier to treat than barbs.” The RainWing tilted her head, a faint leak of uncertain sky-blue confusion winding down her back. “But that might have been him just talking to himself.”

“Carnelian… the SkyWing?” Peril asked, her gaze drifting back to the bandaged dragonet.

“That’s her! She’s in our winglet, but she’s kinda grumpy? I was grumpy too though before I learned Glory was coming to the school too, even though Jambu was staying behind to take care of the RainWings and he’s SO much fun to help out since he doesn’t know anything about ruling. Even though we’re on a mountain, I don’t think it’s very much like the Sky Queendom. They like bigger caves than this, from what I learned in class, but the Dragonets of Destiny didn’t have a wings of sky when they were learning everything about everyone else.”

“Right,” Peril said, feeling absolutely lost.

“But you’re like, older than ANY of the dragonets by like, a YEAR. And you kept changing colors in your sleep, but none of them seemed really concerned about it even though you’re not a RainWing and other tribes don’t generally do that. Oh, you must be Peril, the one who’s really hot all the time! I’m Kinkajou, and I’m like, Glory’s little sister, I love her so much. Are you _part_ RainWing? We should do the spit test. It would be SO COOL to have a SkyWing sister! I’m sure there’s something around here I could melt!” Kinkajou broke off, wincing as she stretched her neck up to survey the room for anything that wouldn’t be missed.

“My mouth is dry, I’ll have to do it later,” Peril interrupted. “What were you saying about the burns?”

Kinkajou’s train of thought seemed to stall, taking more than a few seconds and tiny flicks of her talons before she was able to retrace the conversation. When she remembered, the crests around her cheeks flared open and her entire body turned a joyful, searing yellow. “Oh, right, Carnelian! They said her chances are pretty good, the teachers, I mean. Clay kept saying SkyWings are resistant to being burned, and Glory said it didn’t look as bad as what she did to Scarlet, and Scarlet lived, and Glory’s melted her SO bad. I’m really happy about it. Carnelian being okay, I mean, not Scarlet being melted.”

Peril noticed the NightWing had started to relax, though she was repeatedly running her talons over an oddly-shaped stone that looked like it was hung around her neck, and eyeing Peril nervously.

Kinkajou’s back brightened pink, as if she could feel her companion starting to relax again. “Carnelian, right, she’s a part of our winglet, and I really think we can make her like dragons more and maybe feel more at home? She’s older than we are, so I think she thinks we’re a little stupid and don’t care enough about fighting, but that’s okay. Talking’s better than fighting most of the time. I asked Glory if I could dig out a big skylight but she said it would probably make the room collapse, which doesn’t really make sense to me because if I take the stuff on top away, what’s going to fall in? I think she’s a worrier, like Moonwatcher.” Kinkajou tilted her head up suddenly, so her beak was pointing at the ceiling, to look at her NightWing friend teasingly.

“I-I’m not a worrier!” The NightWing protested, relaxing a little more so she could glare at the RainWing dragonet. Her cheeks were flushed purple.. “The school was just attacked, and you got hurt! This is a perfectly acceptable time to worry.”

“It was an attack?” Peril interrupted, leaning off the side of her bed, supressing a wince as Moonwatcher half-ducked for a moment. “By who?”

Moonwatcher had her ears pinned back, reluctant to speak, but Kinkajou looked back at Peril and continued as if she’d never changed the subject. “The teachers don’t know, which is really weird, because so far they’ve found an answer to almost everything, or else they’d be pretty bad at teaching. Starflight thinks it’s the IceWings, because they have some ancient rivalry with the NightWings, but that doesn’t explain why Carnelian was a target too. Glory thinks it’s some rogue NightWings who still want to take the rainforest over, and so they want to start another war, but she also thinks it would be a really bad plan because everyone knows about the RainWings now.” She stopped, pensive. “We have a lot of wars.”

Moonwatcher lifted her talon as if she were still in a classroom, and Kinkajou glanced over towards her, flicking an ear. Moonwatcher, her voice carrying easily to Peril despite the fact her gaze was fixed solely on Kinkajou, said,  “Clay says the most important thing is telling families about what’s happened. Glory sent Deathbringer to tell Bigtail’s parents, since he knows the rainforest -”

“AND he’s been moping around the hunting grounds again, ever since Glory gave him a talk about inappropriate actions around dragonets half your age,” Kinkajou clarified, again glancing to Moon to make sure she was alright with the interruption, who looked as if she was used to facts being added. “For a grown dragon, he’s acting like a baby about it.”

Moon nodded, almost imperceptibly. “But we don’t have anyone to go to the Sky Queendom and tell Ruby about what happened to Carnelian.”

Peril’s curiosity piqued, and she pulled herself down off of the platform to stretch out her stiff limbs as the conversation continued. “That’s Ruby’s daughter?”

“I think she’s more like a babysitter to her son, Cliff,” Kinkajou answered again. “I’m not sure what Carnelian’s family is like. She doesn’t really talk about it. She doesn’t really talk about anything to us, or really anyone. But we don’t talk to dragonets who are like, one or two either, and Carnelian’s as old as Glory, so I think she probably feels the same way about us as we do about babies. But from what I could hear, which was a pretty big amount because I’m not the one who got a concussion, Carnelian might as well be Ruby’s second child, even though if she was Ruby’s actual child she’d be way too young to be having kids. Maybe more like a niece that she’s really close to.” She blinked. “Is your head okay, Moon? It’s been a while since you were icing it, and I know you don’t like the damp but if it’s hurting-”

Moonwatcher gave her a clearly frustrated look, and Kinkajou shrugged her wings in a _well-I-care-about-you-I’m-asking-anyway_ gesture.

Peril interrupted that by standing up, which felt even more rude when they both jumped to stare at her. Peril had kind of forgotten how little dragonets were; if not for the firescales, she probably could have carried them both on her back without too much trouble. She recalled Kinkajou’s mention of Glory’s talk with Deathbringer, and made a mental note to learn who he was and bump into him some time, quite literally.

“Are you sure you should be walking around?” Kinkajou asked, her voice wavering between concern and uncertainty. “You were super-close to that explosion, and even I’m a little off balance, I’m like, two full shades away from normal, and I was at the DOOR. You got hit super hard, and there was all of the smoke, and CLAY was there trying to help, and I just really think they only left us alone in here because they expected we’d all be knocked out for longer than this.”

Peril _had_ almost accepted she was too woozy to leave the room, but hearing someone imply she shouldn’t set her scales on edge. She shook her head to clear it. “I want to talk to Clay about all of this. I was there, he needs to know what I saw.”

Kinkajou nodded, settling back on to the bed. Peril turned away, but not before the colors had already started fading out of the dragonet’s scales. Judging by the rushed whispers from behind her, Kinkajou was feeling a lot worse than she wanted to let on.

Peril left them to it, ducking through the large doorframe out of habit, and walked off down the hallway in the direction she was pretty sure the teacher’s wing was. The hallways seemed quiet, so there was probably some sort of lockdown, which was good because Peril’s thoughts were absolutely not on where she was walking.

Her mind had already drifted from the layout of the school to a map of the Sky Queendom, where she’d lived her whole life but only ever seen from the narrow window of a castle that she had fancied to be her birthright and had discovered to be only her prison. She’d been worried about traveling beyond the walls because of the war, and then once the war ended, she’d been terrified of going back. Well, and Queen Ruby had banished her.

But at the same time, there was no way Scarlet was there, and this would be OFFICIAL BUSINESS. Ruby would be the kind of dragon who would let her deliver such an urgent message. Peril knew the story of the new queen long before she was chosen; Ruby seemed a much more peaceful dragon than Scarlet had been, even though she was Scarlet’s daughter. Her father had taken her egg from the palace and traded it with a dud from a commoner, and while Scarlet had commanded the King’s execution for failing to provide her with a dragonet, Ruby had been hatched healthy and loved by a family in the lower districts of the city. Scarlet had eventually found out, once Ruby had grown up and began to look more like her mother, but the assassins had made a mistake in their target and killed Ruby’s adopted older sister, Tourmaline.

Ruby had simply taken her egg and fled, leaving the Sky Queendom and seeking refuge with Princess Blaze and Queen Glacier, until she was able to return and claim the throne for herself. Peril was sure if Ruby had been turned away by the IceWing queen and her partner, there would still be a war. But she hadn’t been, and the war had ended, and the SkyWings she listened in on seemed… happy. Hopeful. With Scarlet gone. With _Peril_ gone. If Queen Ruby let her come back -

Peril was cut off by an angry, frightened squawk from around chest level. She took a step back without thinking, and ended up staring down at a dull green SeaWing, with a bulky body that would have been threatening if it weren’t on a dragonet who was only five years old and looked startled enough that Peril might as well have dropped from the ceiling.

“Watch where you’re walking,” Peril snapped, her tone harsh. “I’ve got firescales, can’t you tell?”

“You watch out, if you’re the dangerous one!” He snapped back, gills flaring. He stared at her for a moment, realization dawning on his face that she was too old to be a student. “I’m in my room!” He shouted, nearly climbing over his own tail in his rush to flee down the hallway.

Peril stared after him, confused, and then regained her composure. “Hey - hey! Wait a second! Do you know where Clay is?”

“Cafeteria!” The dragonet called back, veering around a turn further down the hall and disappearing.

Peril frowned down the empty hallway, trying to recollect herself. She’d been thinking about the Sky Queedom, right? Right. She knew the castle well enough, and she certainly had the free time. She felt the scales on her back simmering yellow and white with her excitement. She could deliver a message right to Queen Ruby without any problems AT ALL if Clay gave her permission, and maybe seeing her working for the new Queen would mean dragons wouldn’t be so scared of her any more!

She was nearly bouncing by the time she reached the cafeteria door, and forced herself to relax so she could push it open; the main part of the doors was wooden, with a stone bar across the middle, and she’d accidentally introduced the kitchens to the idea of open concept interior design when she’d last been careless about pressing on them.

She was met with the curious stares of the Dragonets of Destiny, surrounded by other teachers and groundskeepers they’d hired, broken out of their work by her entry.

Peril pushed her chest forward and lifted her head, proud and defiant. “I’m going to deliver the message to Queen Ruby in the Sky Queendom, and I’ll go on my own.”

Clay blinked. “Don’t you want dinner first?”


	5. Chapter 3

It took a great deal of convincing to persuade Clay to let Peril leave right away, which included multiple promises to stop and eat before nightfall and a not-so-sneaking suspicion that staying for dinner would have only led to her staying for good. It was Sunny, surprisingly, who had the final word on the matter; she gave Peril a very strange, searching look before smiling as if remembering an old joke and simply saying ‘the Eye of Onyx will judge her,’ and going back to preparing bagged dinner.

Even Clay had relented then, though he cast his golden sister a doubtful, worried look, and he handed off his bags to one of the teachers Peril hadn’t bothered to meet. The two of them left the room without any other words said, which suited Peril fine. She always felt like the dragonets still blamed her for fighting Clay, as if THEY hadn't been stopping the war because of what THEIR guardians told them. As far as she was concerned, they were in the same boat.

“Sunny’s used that phrase ever since the war ended, though she hasn’t had many chances lately now that most of the conflicts have been sorted out,” Clay explained, keeping his voice low so his words wouldn’t carry through the thick stone walls and into young, scared ears. “She used to be obsessed with the Eye of Onyx when she first really figured out what it could do, and did as much research as possible into finding out whether or not an enchanted object could really determine whether or not someone was worthy of it, or learn anything about them at all.”

“What did she find out?” Peril asked, intrigued.

“That these kind of things almost always turn out to be more practical. The Eye of Onyx can’t tell whether a dragon has the knowledge or skills to rule, but it can determine whether or not they doubt themselves. And we all saw that the whole ‘disintegrating those who don’t deserve it’ thing was rumor - that was tied in to what Sunny discovered. If it senses doubt, it amplifies it, so it becomes as painful to hold as if you’re being burned alive.”

“Oh.”

Clay smiled fondly. “Sunny burst into my room one day, holding a bundle of scrolls under one wing and shouting about royal bloodlines and animus dragons, and she said that she’d figured it all out; the Eye of Onyx can determine the best leader of the SandWings, because a dragon determined to lead has already faced their doubts and beaten them, and if any of those fears come to pass while they rule, they’ll be capable of finding a solution, because they already have. Your experiences shape you more than someone telling you you’re a Queen and slapping a crown on your head. 

“Sunny held the Eye herself, you know,” Clay added, almost as an afterthought. “And she chose to pass it on to a dragon she saw as more capable for bearing it. I think there’s a lot of ways to show leadership.”

“So it doesn’t weigh your soul against a grain of sand, like those old legends?” Peril joked, trying to lighten the mood.

She was rewarded with Clay’s deep, hearty laugh. “No, no, nothing so... divine. The ability to enchant something may be magical, but what those enchantments do will always be warped by the mind of the dragon trying to use them. Oh, we’re already here. It always feels faster when you’re walking with someone else.”

Peril blinked, shaking herself out of her thoughts. They’d reached the wide mouth of the main entrance to Jade Mountain Academy; the archway with the hallway to the atrium behind them, the roughly tiled plaza and surrounding gardens that made up the landing platform ahead. Peril had asked Clay about a week after arriving how dragons who couldn’t fly made it to the school, and he’d shown her a side entrance through a tunnel with a gentler slope. As functional as it may have been, she still felt kind of bad that dragonets who couldn’t help their bad wings weren’t able to experience the plaza on the first day with their peers. She also still figured she was projecting.

Clay stepped out beyond the arch and looked up at the sky. The curve of the mountain and the shape of the arch meant most gusts of wind were steered away from the entrance, but there was still a gentle breeze pushing waves of chalky dirt around the painted mosaics. The sun was just dipping low against the horizon, casting the entire scene in a faint golden hue.

“Is this about Kestrel?” Clay blurted.

Peril stared at him blankly. It was strange enough for him to say something unexpectedly, and his voice had done a strange little waver that made her want to wrap him up in her wings, though she wasn’t really sure why. “Kestrel? Kestrel. Yes. Wait, no -”

“I mean,” he interrupted, waving a thick paw as he tried to sort out his words without his usual pensive pauses, “because you lost her. If you talk to the Queen, she can probably tell you who your father was. Are you doing this because you want to know?”

Peril almost, _almost_ made a snarky joke, but caught herself with the words practically between her teeth. It wasn’t like Clay knew who his father was either, and his mother might as well be dead for how little she cared.

“I… hadn’t thought about it at all,” Peril admitted truthfully. “I might try to find him, if it comes up. But I… I’m not being helpful here, Clay, and seeing me usually means someone’s about to CRY instead of saying hello, and I barely ever have the space to fly without worrying about other dragons. What happens if I stumble over someone's tail in the hallway, or someone tries to flick my shoulder with their wing to get my attention, or Carnelian... or Carnelian.”

Peril felt her talons curling into fists, and for a moment her body trembled as she forced the hurt back down.

Clay gave her a small, knowing nod.

Peril let herself step out on to unsteady ground, filling her voice with conviction. “I don’t belong here, and we both KNOW it. I’m not a very good teacher, and I’m not a very good SkyWing, either. I barely know anything about my own kind - about the dragons that should be my family. If I go to the Sky Queendom, maybe I’ll find out where I really belong.”

“You used to think you belonged with me,” Clay said, his voice tight. She looked over at him, worried, but he was smiling. “Just because my scales could touch yours, remember? You’re like a sister to me, Peril, and I want you to be happy. There’ll always be a room for you at Jade Mountain Academy, especially since I don’t seem to know how to be a very good MudWing either.” His smile was tight, and his eyes watered. “I’m glad you’ll be alright.”

“Don’t start crying on me,” Peril teased, though she found herself equally choked up. “It’s hard to say goodbye through a cloud of steam.”

“Send me a letter, okay?” Clay asked, wiping his eyes with the back of his paw.

“I will,” Peril grinned at him and ran past him out into the courtyard, spreading her wide wings and catching the last of the daylight updraft breezing past her on the mountain. She rolled in the air, facing back towards the mountain, and yelled, “though I’ve always thought of myself more as the ‘singing telegram’ type!”

She heard him laughing, even as the wind carried her away from the mountain and out into the wide world that she’d barely given herself time to dip a talon into.

“Remember, Peril!” He called after her, standing on his hind legs in the plaza. “Like Sunny said - the only thing that can decide who you are is you!”

 

~~~~~

 

Peril flew on until dark, and then found a suitably large pile of rocks to use as a bed for the night. She hunted briefly, mostly to fill her promise to Clay; something about having set out into the world for a reason that _wasn’t_ related to avoiding potential murder gave her butterflies so badly that she’d lost her appetite. She curled herself up on the stones, wrapped in her own wings so that she wouldn’t sprawl and start a fire overnight, and looked up at the stars.

The one thing she’d really wanted to learn at Jade Mountain Academy had been how to read a star chart, and shortly after, how to memorize one. She hadn’t even fledged when Scarlet had taken her as a dragonet, and whenever she was allowed to fly afterwards, it was only around the arena grounds, and only in daylight and with two guards accompanying her. After escaping, huddled in the darkness she’d only seen through narrow windows, the heavens seemed to open up above her and show her a distant, unreachable world of unfathomable beauty, and she’d been enamoured with the night ever since.

At least stargazing had its practical uses. She judged herself to be a little off to the side of her intended course; she wanted to skirt the edge of the mountains until she reached the lowlands around the delta, and then cross over to the coastal side to avoid the last reaches of the desert wastes of the Sand Queendom. On her current path, she’d be seeing dunes before the next day was out.

That settled, she let her mind wander back to Clay’s question. She truly _hadn’t_ thought about her father, not since meeting Kestrel. After meeting Kestrel, it just seemed like it had been one exhausting slide, as if she’d been thrown into the side of a mountain and her claws couldn’t get a grip. First learning Kestrel was her mother, then having to flee from Scarlet’s palace, and then learning that Kestrel was dead, and then everything else with the war and what came after. Even getting the Academy in order, with what little Peril could do to help (mostly using her scales to press tools back into shape), had been a rushed and busy year, with just how much construction needed to be done, and how many dragons needed to be contacted, and how many scrolls and scholars had to be gathered from around the continent.

Peril wasn’t sure any other dragon would consider travelling across half of Pyrrhia to deliver a message about an attack and discover who she really was as a relaxing trip, but being alone felt kind of nice, maybe with an undercurrent of absolutely white-eyed terrifying.

She let her head drop over her talons and closed her eyes. At least it meant she didn’t need to worry about kicking someone in her sleep.

 

~~~~~

 

The rest of her journey was just as uneventful as the first leg. Getting to the delta had taken three days instead of her expected two; she’d seen a pair of SkyWings basking on the foothills, their crimson and gold scales winking like jewels against the gray stone even from her distance, and given them a cautiously wide berth. From the delta, where she’d eyed the rivers hungrily but decided it wasn’t worth the steam, the flight had been swifter than she’d expected with the strong gusts from over the ocean.

(She did spend long hours soaring effortlessly on the breeze, gazing off to the seaward horizon and wondering if she would be able to fly all the way around back to the mountain without crashing into the waves. She stopped thinking about it when she came to the conclusion that she’d require a boat, and nothing she could safely touch could float.)

And then, suddenly, she’d eased around the edge of one of the lower hills and found herself gazing down the open path along the river, and the mountainous castle that loomed over the mouth of it. Before she knew she’d done it, she was standing in the muck at the side of the river, kneeling in it, pressing her face and her chest and her neck into the dark, wet soil that crackled and grayed at her touch. A soft, unwilling keen pressed out of her throat, wordless and agonized.

She hadn’t expected seeing it to be this hard. Being in it, maybe, but she’d hoped to get a message to Ruby through a guard or something and meet her somewhere else. She wasn’t sure how long she’d hunched there, half-buried in mud that had swiftly become dirt, and keening like a hatchling with their eyes still sealed shut.

She heard wingbeats, and shortly after felt the rush of wind over her back and the shaking of dragons landing nearby. Peril wanted to just bury herself deeper into the muck and never come out, never even see another dragon, father and Ruby and destiny be carrion, but she pried her head from its earthen nest.

And not a second too late - she barely had time to fix the nearest SkyWing with a bright blue glare before heaving herself up and jumping away, their talons only just whispering above the glowing scalelets on her wing.

They seemed unconcerned, and they had no reason to be otherwise. They were large, a sunset-y reddish-purple, and armored from head to tail in a combination of chain links and spike-studded leather. They had a spiked spear hung under each wing, with a forked tip and jagged edge, and a partial bridle that added two metal saber teeth to their upper jaw. On top of that, they were flanked by two other SkyWings - a red and a gold - who were clothed much the same.

Their expression serene and welcoming, they opened their mouth and released a series of chirps, clicks and soft screeches that were just about as sensible to Peril as a field sparrow in the second before it was eaten.

The gold SkyWing snorted and pushed the purple one’s shoulder with their palm. They made the same noises at the other SkyWing - not angry, but almost certainly mocking - before turning to Peril and saying in perfectly understandable Pyrrhian, “are you in need of medical attention?”

“Of course not,” Peril snapped back, shaking the crusts of dirt out of her scales and staring warily at the purpler SkyWing. “You can’t touch me. I’ve got firescales. You’re lucky I jumped away.”

The gold SkyWing closed her eyes and lifted her ears, tilting her head in a way that seemed like Peril should know what it meant. “That’s not a very common trait. You’re not from around here, right? After all, you don’t know Kikili.”

Peril stared at her in disbelief. A _SkyWing_ not knowing _Peril_ , the demon of Queen Scarlet’s arena? And what in daylight was Kikili?

“Go easy on her, Dawn.” The red dragon suggested from behind the other two. They’d sat back on their haunches to inspect a piece of their chainmail that had snagged, having decided the other two would be sufficient protection. “You don’t need a life story from every traveler, even if they can’t speak SkyWing,” Peril winced, “no matter how much you want to get that historian job at the palace.”

The gold dragon - Dawn, apparently, promptly turned and pounced towards the red, and the two rolled through the firmer dirt further away from the river. Peril felt an ache in her chest as she saw how effortless it was for them to shove each other around, even if Dawn was displaying that by standing on the red dragon’s shoulders and trying to stuff a wad of grass into their mouth.

The purple dragon watched them for a moment, unfazed, before turning back to Peril. “You’ll have to excuse my siblings,” he said, thankfully in Pyrrhian. “All three of us have been on construction duty for the past week, and it’s much harder to get your annoying brother to swallow a stone the size of his keel. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine, I was just… a little overwhelmed.” Peril admitted, looking over at the other two guards - Dawn had jumped away, and the red was trying to scrape dirt off of his tongue. 

“Bad memories from the war?” He offered, and then shook his head, quickly enough that he didn’t see Peril wince. “I’m as bad as my sister. If it makes you feel better, all of the construction has been to renovate the palace and the… surrounding area. This is the first time a lot of us are seeing what Queen Scarlet did to the place, aside from overhearing rumor from the traders who got to go to the upper rings.”

“It was horrible,” Peril muttered softly.

“I can believe it,” he agreed. He was looking at her in a way she wasn’t totally sure of; wariness? Confusion? “We can escort you in, if it would make you feel safer. Dawn and Cardinal don’t tussle in the air, and I can get them to yell at each other in Kikili instead of Pyrrhian if you’d like.”

She considered, watching as Dawn relented and padded up to help Cardinal pull debris out of their armor. Cardinal’s head snapped up, and they swatted a clawful of mud into Dawn’s face, where their physical argument resumed. She could feel the purple dragon’s eyes on hers, and then her neck, even as she kept her attention elsewhere. The scales on her back prickled uncomfortably.

“I think an escort might be a good idea,” she agreed after a pause. “I have to deliver a message to the Queen, from Jade Mountain Academy, but I don’t really know my way around. And because of the firescales, it might be best to, um, avoid any crowded spaces.”

His voice seemed to drop an octave. “I can get you a _private_ room, if you’d like.”

Peril’s heart dropped into her talons. “I should be going-”

“Are you flirting with strangers again, Tern?” Cardinal called from where they and Dawn seemed to have resolved their disagreement, both cleaning grit out of their claws. Dawn was giving the purple dragon a very disappointed glare.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” the purple dragon rushed to add, reaching out a talon to take hers. Peril stepped back, her scales brightening to yellow with hurt and anger.

Before she could get a word in, Dawn shoved her way between them, shouldering her brother quite literally out of the conversation. He looked wounded, and Dawn clicked something at him in the language Peril didn’t know. He gave her a grumpy look, ears pinned back and abruptly took off, his large wings beating powerfully as he rose towards the castle.

“I’m sorry about him,” Dawn said after a moment. “He does that with every girl he meets, no matter how many times I tell him off for it. Nothing but clouds between his ears. Are you alright?”

Peril glared at her. “I’ve been through worse. But I still need to visit the palace."

Dawn opened her wings a bit, shrugging. “Haven’t we all? I sent him ahead to clear landing space at the palace. If you still want an escort, Cardinal and I can fly you in as soon as you’re ready. And don’t worry,” she winked, “you’re not our type.”

“Yes, please, thank you.” Peril answered in a rush. "I've been... kind of banished, from the Kingdom, actually? My name's Peril. I'd prefer if I didn't have to kill you."

"You're _that_ Peril?!" Dawn balked, and Peril explained the situation a bit more while Cardinal took a few extra minutes to remove and rinse their chainmail in the river, which they did with a fair amount of complaining.

Once Dawn understood and padded over to help, Peril sat alone in a ring of dried mud, lost in thought. She felt like her entire world had been pulled out from under her talons. Here she was in the Sky Queendom, the place she’d feared for so long, and the first dragons she met were fully armed squabbling siblings who had no idea who she was - until she mentioned the banishment - and no fear of her. And flirting? Peril wasn’t sure any dragon had ever flirted with her before, and she decided she much preferred Clay’s steady, brotherly affection over that seeking, insistent tone. The shock of it all, in the shadow of the palace that had once been Scarlet’s, she found it hard to be as pushy and demanding as she’d grown comfortable with at the Academy.

She thought about Tern’s attempts to touch her despite her warnings, and the tip of her tail curled into a tight ball. If he wouldn’t accept that she was dangerous, it wasn’t going to work out anyway.

Cardinal called to her from the river, breaking her out of her thoughts. She followed them up into the air, and then - using their bodies to block a direct view of the castle ahead - the three of them soared towards the place that Peril had once called home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some worldbuilding stuff, to clarify;  
> \- Kikili is the SkyWing language. Each group has its own language, and it's a combination of these that make up the continental dialect of Pyrrhian (or 'common'). Peril would have learned Kikili as a young dragonet if her situation had been different.  
> \- Referring to the self in any dragon language is more complex than in human languages, and any mention of the self is gendered. The proper way to refer to a dragon who hasn't gendered themselves in conversation is with neutral-uncertain.
> 
> Also, in an event that I am ELATED about, this story has fan art now! The wonderful [spxcepirate](https://spxcepirate.deviantart.com/) / [cassiopirate](http://cassiopirate.tumblr.com/) has drawn a comic page of a part of the prologue, and I adore it. Just, love it beyond words. It's available [here on deviantART](https://spxcepirate.deviantart.com/art/Peril-s-Destiny-724785606) or [here on Tumblr](http://cassiopirate.tumblr.com/post/169561396367/anyways-heres-a-comic-based-off-of-canonkillers)!


	6. Chapter 4

With only Dawn and Cardinal present, the flight to the castle was almost relaxing. They led her around the far side, to avoid the bustle of dragons flying between the upper and lower rings, and Dawn especially seemed elated to have someone she could show off her knowledge of the city to.

Peril had only known the city as Scarlet’s Palace, but to those who lived there it was Ikketil, the SkyWing capital city, and it was a series of wide steps carved out into the mountain itself. Peril considered ‘steps’ to be an understatement; each one was a full circle around the mountain, and was made up of four sections; two streets, each three dragon-lengths wide, running each way, with market stalls between them and houses up against the mountainside; though they looked like little more than raised and tiled porches from their flying height, Dawn explained that the arched doors opened into caves on the inside, often with multiple rooms.

“And,” she added, in the educational tone she’d started using when Peril had first asked something along the lines of ‘what in blazes is all of that’, “the houses above the second ring each have a room where there’s a big, overhead faucet that connects to the reservoir behind the castle, so any dragon can have fresh water whenever they want it. Most of the historical accounts were destroyed or lost when you-know-who showed up, but urban legend says the pipe system was dug out by scavengers, who were being commanded by a SkyWing animus right after the Scorching.”

“I’ve searched all over for scrolls on it,” Cardinal added, tapping their sister’s wingtip with their own affectionately. “But I think I’ve read every scroll in Pyrrhia by now.”

“What about the houses below the second ring?” Peril asked. “Do they get water?”

Dawn shook her head. “Not to the houses. They’re smaller, the further away you get from the palace. The lowest rings have bigger, communal water rooms. Word is that Ruby’s trying to write into law that the lower rings will be for adult dragons without dragonets, while parents with them and older dragons who can’t live on their own will live in the higher rings. Since they could use the help, you know?”

Peril nodded, and Dawn broke into another explanation of how the upper rings had formerly been housing for the rich and important, or commoners that the Queen wanted to make a show of generosity over. Peril couldn’t help but be reminded of Starflight and his library; he might have something tucked away that could solve Dawn’s pipe puzzle.

Dawn went quiet, and Peril broke out of her thoughts to give the drakka a curious look. Dawn gave Peril a concerned look over her shoulder, slowing down. “It’s - uh - I guess I didn’t really think this through. Once we turn around this part of the mountain, we’re going to be over the - uh - the arena.”

Peril’s wings faltered for a moment, and she hoped Dawn hadn’t noticed. Cardinal’s ears flicked back towards her, though; she’d assumed they weren’t paying attention to her and Dawn, but if they noticed a change in her wingbeats, they must have been.

“I’ll be fine,” Peril lied. “Don’t try to catch me if I go down.”

Dawn still had the worried look, but rolled her head in a way that came across as a shrug. Cardinal, though, slowed down and swung around to face her, angling their wings so the draft didn’t buffet Peril’s face. Peril fell to a hover as well, doing the same, while Dawn flew a little ways off to, presumably, judge how much of the arena could be avoided.

“Not from the air,” they said, their voice calm but stern. The light angled across a faint scar on their neck that Peril hadn’t noticed before, a full paw’s worth of talon cuts from about midway up their neck that shredded straight down the smaller scales and skin to some point below the collar of their chainmail. Dawn was only seven, likely too young to have seen any real action in the war that had ended only a year before, but with Cardinal’s extra year on her…

They still had their eyes fixed intently on hers, but much more protective than their older brother’s predatory ones. “You ended up grounded just from seeing the palace before. If you need to visit the area again, you’re doing it with talons on terra firma.”

Peril ducked her head, agreeing and submitting. Cardinal clicked their tongue in a soothing word of Kikili.

“You’ve been through a lot more than you’ve let on, sky-sister.” Cardinal said softly. Peril almost shivered; she’d heard the term used between other SkyWings before, a show of friendly affection, but hearing it now only made her realize she’d never heard it used for  _her_ before. “And I think there’s a part of you that still needs to see it. But not so suddenly, and not like this.”

Peril couldn’t figure out how to respond in the face of genuine concern from a stranger, and luckily was spared the need to puzzle it out by Dawn returning to earshot.

“Tern’s got the lower western plaza cleared, the one with the lion statues!” She chirped happily. “If we come in low and against the mountain, the area will be hidden by the peaks. The Queen is just heading up there now!”

Cardinal gave Peril a soft, supportive look and then turned their back to her again, their brilliant red scales leading the way on a flight path that, while close in comparison to their wide swing around the rest of the mountain, still could probably fit a second dragon on the inner side. But Dawn’s judgement had been correct; the arena’s tall walls were carved out of the cliff, and this side was the same mountain as the rest of it.

They landed on a wide, semi-circular platform on the side of the cliff, with a railing a dragon-length or so from the edge at a height that only a young dragonet would be stopped by. It was tiled in pale blue and white, making even Tern’s darker scales stand out like jewels. There were also matching statues at either side of the open-arch doorway, posed as if holding the ceiling up, which Peril assumed were lions. They, unlike the tile, were a sandy yellow color.

Almost as soon as Peril had taken it all in, the three siblings jolted to attention, paws close together, wings half-furled, and eyes facing the door. Peril turned to face the same way, and a white-hot jolt of fear lanced down her back as her gaze fell upon the red dragon standing in the shadow of the door.

"You are supposed to be banished," the red dragon growled.

Ruby stepped into the light, looking so brilliant that it was as if the gemstone had been named after her, and she allowed it to keep the name out of pity. She seemed, in that moment, like everything Scarlet wasn’t; young, beautiful, kind, gentle. And there was something about the way she was holding herself that Peril felt irresistibly drawn to.

Apparently, she was not the only one. A young dragonet, less than a year old, bolted out from the room behind her - there was a harried squawk, presumably from the dragon he was supposed to be staying with - and leaped on to Ruby’s back, chirping to her so quickly in Kiliki that he sounded like a whole tree of songbirds. Ruby seemed to be expecting the dragonet’s unexpected landing, as she barely moved under the blow. Peril kept catching parts of her that seemed so much like her mother, like the curve of her cheek or the way she had angled her body to bear the impact of the dragonet, but there was something serene in those things, like she had taken what once made them similar and drew all of the venom out.

If there were an Eye of Onyx for the SkyWings, it could have been thrust into Ruby’s talons and she wouldn’t even blink.

“Harrier,” the Queen called over her shoulder, holding back a laugh, “you seem to have dropped something.”

Reluctantly, a light orange and brown SkyWing walked out through the arch, the sunlight highlighting the white markings on their face and wingtips. Peril thought she could spy a few of them on their tail, too, which was currently almost tying itself in knots. “I’m sorry, Ruby,” she said anxiously, “I thought Cliff was distracted by his shells, and then he just dropped them and ran.”

Peril had expected the Queen to be casual, but to have dragons drop her title when speaking to her? Surely that was a little much.

Ruby walked up to Harrier, Cliff squawking in protest as he slid further down her back, and gently touched her cheek to the other dragons’.

Peril understood why Harrier was allowed to drop the title.

Ruby shrugged her son towards Harrier, and he reluctantly dropped to the ground, where he planted his feet and chirped something very much determined at his mothers. Ruby nodded to Harrier, who replied to him and guided him over to the lion statues.

As they left, Ruby turned to her guards and their charge and her sterner, regal side returned. “I hope you can all accept the breach in etiquette,” she said in a tone that made it clear there was no actual room for disagreement. “He cannot understand Pyrrhian yet, so as long as you can all tune out the babbling of a toddler, he won’t be an issue. Now, Peril, I understand you are bringing a message from the Academy, and that is why you have not been ripped limb from limb?”

Peril nodded, trying to recall the answer she’d decided on before she’d left Jade Mountain and trying definitely to ignore the very blatant threat. “Four days ago, one of the storage rooms had a dragonflame cactus lit inside of it. I discovered it accidentally, because I thought there was food in there. I left the room before it exploded, and-” Peril felt something inside of her grow very small and cold as she realized the way this was going to sound, “-crashed into a SkyWing student. I pushed the students in the room away from the bomb, but four were still injured by the blast, not including myself. Starflight - the Dragonets of Destiny believe that if I had not been there, the two students in the room likely would have been killed by the blast. I’m here to inform you of the attack and of its SkyWing target, whether that was accidental or intentional, and to look into any potential leads on where the bomb could have been acquired from.”

Ruby nodded. “Who was the SkyWing student? Their family must be informed.”

“About that, um.” Peril’s claws dug into the grit between the smooth tiles under her feet. “It was Carnelian.”

Ruby mouthed a soundless ‘oh’. Behind her, Cliff blinked at her from his perch on the lion statue’s head and excitedly chirped ‘Car!’.

He jumped down, partially gliding - he’d be fledged soon, but not yet - and slipped under his mother’s talons to reach Ruby’s side. “Car! Car!”

“Sweetheart, no, she’s not -” Ruby started, catching herself speaking Pyrrhian and switching over to Kikili. Whatever she said, Cliff’s ears drooped, and while it was clear she either hadn’t told him everything or he didn’t understand it, he sullenly moped back off to the lion statue.

“Dismissed,” she said suddenly, her tone sharp. Without a word, the three guards turned and flew off. Peril wondered if she’d ever see them again, but didn’t have much time to dwell on it.

“What is Carnelian’s condition?” Ruby demanded.

“She’s burned… badly.” Peril admitted. “But by the time I left, she was bandaged and left alone, so she was stable. I think she’ll have some bad scarring, but she should survive.”

The fight drained out of Ruby as quickly as it appeared. The Queen fell back on her haunches, her wings dropping so far as to almost rest on the ground.

“Thank the skies,” she whispered, and then shook her head. “No, Peril, thank _you_.”

“For burning your daughter?” Peril blurted.

Ruby’s teeth showed around the back of her lips. Peril wasn’t sure if it was a smile or a grimace. “For saving her life. If you hadn’t been there, she probably would have died. I prefer hearing this over hearing that I have to collect a body. I'm sure you can understand.”

Peril slowly nodded. The Queen’s tone was cold and hard, as if any uncertainty would freeze her words in her throat. 

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you with the cactus bombs for a few days, though I can ask a scribe to search out any leads in the meantime. I’ll have one of the empty first-ring caves cleaned out for you to stay in until then, and I’ll send guards to check in and pass on any new information.”

Peril just nodded again.

“I’m not going to lock you in or anything. I expect you to be responsible for your abilities, and to stay out of trouble, but you’re free to wander around the city as you wish. A section of the treasury has also been set aside for you, as… well, as an apology for what you had to go through here. I intended to send it to Jade Academy, but haven't had the dragons to spare. It’s not a lot, you're still a soldier like the rest of us, but you can bill any of your purchases to the palace. I’ll have one of the royal sashes sent down to your quarters so that none of the merchants think you’re making it up.”

“Okay,” Peril said, confused beyond belief.

Ruby gave her a quick once-over, wiped her eyes with the back of her paw, and then turned around to Harrier and Cliff. Without a word, they disappeared into the shadows of the interior, though Peril could still make out Ruby leaning against her partner with her head buried in the crook of Harrier’s wing.

Feeling awkward and - both surprisingly and unsurprisingly - abandoned, Peril took to the air again. She coasted around above Ikketil, taking it all in. The upper tiers were almost all SkyWings, which she supposed made sense this deep into their territory. As the layers dropped lower, though, other kinds of dragons became more and more common, until they were almost an even split between the seven flocks at the bottom.

The bulky bodies of MudWings were easiest to spot, and then the IceWings due to the wide berth other dragons gave their frigid scales. SandWings got a bit more space, too, though other SandWings would group near them; Peril guessed it was because of the tails. SkyWings could be spotted by how long their folded wings were, and NightWings by how they seemed to be empty spots in the crowd from so far up. SeaWings were the least common, which also made sense; they were shaped for the frigid ocean, and so the long flight up the mountain was hard on their smaller wings and larger bodies. Peril couldn’t be sure how many RainWings there were; it seemed like they changed colors as quickly as she found one, so when she spotted a second she was never sure if the third was the same dragon as the first or not.

It was dark, and Peril was trying to deduce whether more NightWings showed up at night or if it was just getting harder to see, by the time Ruby’s guard arrived to show her to her quarters. She had to admit, they were pretty nice. The floor was tiled in tiny shards of red, orange, yellow and blue, and the walls were the same pale yellow as the lion statues had been. The colors seemed a popular SkyWing combination, and Peril decided she liked it too. She could see other rooms, too, but was too tired to explore them; she was curious about Dawn’s mention of the water taps, even if using it would turn the entire cave into a sauna.

Instead of touring, she just walked to the back of the room and hopped up on the bed. Like the beds at Jade Mountain, her cot was a raised stone platform, bleached white. There were woven blankets folded and tucked into a hole in the wall, which looked like they would be rather beautiful when spread out, but Peril avoided the urge to pull them out and accidentally burn them to a crisp.

As tired as she was, she didn’t expect the little cave to feel so… cozy. It felt like a proper home, instead of her room in the palace or quarters at Jade Mountain Academy, and despite being in the shadow of her worst nightmares, she fell easily into a deep, tranquil sleep, her mind swirling with Ruby and Harrier and Cliff and the gentle embrace of something close to ‘home’. Even if she wasn't going to be allowed in it for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the shorter chapter! The next one should be longer to make up for it.
> 
> More worldbuilding notes;
> 
> \- Drakka is a female dragon, drakke is a male dragon, and drakk is a dragon who is neither or something else. This refers to the dragon's identity, not any physical trait, and trans dragons (such as Cardinal) don't have any special note that would out them as trans. Dragons of any age choose their own identifiers; a dragon who hasn't decided is simply referred to as a dragon or dragonet.
> 
> \- Tui can't convince me that the palace on the map is all palace. No.


	7. Chapter 5

It was not only a few days before Ruby was able to help. Peril _did_ get her sash (it was metal, and something resistant to fire, which made sense for SkyWings. Peril feared hers would be rather dented after being against her hot scales for so long, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.) and the food in the city was readily available and relatively cheap. Sure, she had to do her shopping from the air and then duck in when there was a space wide enough that she wouldn’t bump into anyone, but that wasn’t super difficult, especially on the higher levels where fewer dragons were walking about.

Dawn and Cardinal dropped in to check on her, alternating the days, and often brought dinner or the means to make it. Dawn showed her how to work the faucets, raving about how useful they could be up until the moment Peril cautiously poked her nose into the water and filled the room with steam, at which point she was too busy laughing to continue. Cardinal was quieter, but taught her how to use the spices that were grown on the lowlands below the city, and helped her experiment with her method of taste testing, which was throwing food and trying to catch it in her mouth without it glancing off of her scales.

She learned more about them and their lives, too. Dawn really did want to be a historian; she’d been born during the war, and instead of fighting had taken a great interest in the political strife that powered the battles and wanted to know if similar things had happened in the past. Cardinal, on the other claw, was content to have an ordinary life in the city with their partner, a SkyWing merchant. The two drakkes lived together on one of the lower rings, though guard duty had kept Cardinal pinned to the barracks in most of their spare time.

From that, she learned Ruby had all but abolished the breeding program. Instead, parents who had eggs they didn’t want would bring them up to a nursery on the top ring, and parents who wanted eggs but couldn’t have them would adopt them. The eggs all had detailed records for their age, appearance and parentage, so there was no risk of them getting mixed up, and the system was working rather well so far. There was also a wingery, for the hatchlings of unadopted eggs, where a team of guardians raised them within the palace itself until a potential parent came along. The Queens' own son was raised among them, when his mothers were too busy.

By the end of the first week, Peril had learned a lot more about the city and the dragons in it, even if Ruby hadn’t gotten back to her. She liked hearing her newfound friends talk to her like she was an ordinary dragon, and they seemed to be mindful of her scales without ever needing to make a show of it.

By the end of the second week, she was about ready to tear her own claws out with impatience.

Cardinal dropped in with dinner about halfway through the third, and found Peril lying belly-up on the floor, limp and staring at wall. They stepped carefully over her tail to drop their parcel in the kitchen, and then returned to give her a bemused look.

“I take it you haven’t heard anything from the Queen, then?”

“I haven’t heard anything from _anyone_ ,” Peril moaned, tilting her head to eyeball the red dragon. “I flew here so FAST and now it’s taking _forever_.”

“Politics tend to do that,” Cardinal reminded her. “Have you looked for anything on your own?”

“I tried hanging around the markets once, but they’re too crowded. I had to sit on someone’s porch for TEN WHOLE MINUTES waiting for a gap in the crowd.”

They nodded, head tilted as they considered. “A friend of mine on the lower ring has a tavern where a lot of dragons stop in and gossip. I don’t think he’d mind if you wanted to sit in the kitchen for a day and eavesdrop, especially if you were willing to keep the fireplace in the back going for him so he didn’t have to keep checking it.”

Peril would have perked her ears up if the floor wasn’t in the way. “Seriously?”

“Well, I haven’t asked yet,” Cardinal clarified, “but before we broke up he used to complain about losing customers because he had to keep going into the back, so if he hasn’t hired someone, I’m sure he’d agree to it. If not, wedge yourself in a corner and shake your sash at him.”

“If I tried, I’d probably spray him with molten metal,” Peril said as she rolled over on to her talons. Cardinal stepped away as her tail unintentionally lashed towards them. “Do you think you can get me in by tonight?”

“It’s a bit short notice, but I can certainly try,” Cardinal agreed.

Peril’s mind raced happily as she waited for them to unpack the food they’d brought - a dozen little buns stuffed with meat that was easier for Peril to catch mid-air than anything else they’d tried - and flew off to go and see what could be done.

She barely tasted her food (though it did try really hard to distract her; she loved the taste of them, dipped in bone broth before cooking, and eating twelve of them in rapid succession was a near call to forgetting everything else she wanted to dwell on.) and paced the room while waiting for Cardinal to return.

“Am I going to be USEFUL?” She shouted as they landed on the porch again.

Their ears pinned back momentarily, not expecting the volume, but they nodded. “If we hurry, we can fit you in before it gets busy.”

If Peril wasn’t worried about her scales, she would have climbed right over them to leave.

 

~~~~~

 

Peril found herself wedged into a corner, as Cardinal had predicted, but the rest of the room was packed with cooking supplies. The fireplace she was set to tend was at least just to the right of the door, so if she lifted her head she could see into the larger room.

It would have looked almost like an ordinary house, with the tiles and the pale colors, but it was dimmer - the only flame was from two sconces on either side of the door, and a brazier hung above the height of any unexpectedly raised heads or wings. The ceiling seemed lower, but cozier, at least to Peril. Cardinal had joked when dropping her off that it was meant to drive dragons to drink.

Peril blew another gout of fire into the oven, eyeing the pile of wood meant to feed it and wondering whether trying to add one herself would set the whole stack ablaze.

She was saved the decision by Hawk, who padded in to get some ice from the very back and tossed a few logs on for her as he passed. As Cardinal had mentioned on the way, he was, unfortunately, handsome; a dark brown with a cream belly, and golden rims on his scales. Peril thought he looked like Harrier, kind of, but preferred the Queen’s appearance to his. It wasn’t that Hawk was particularly unpleasant - he seemed rather nice, and even though Cardinal was his ex they had broken up on good terms - he just didn’t seem as appealing to Peril’s eyes as the Queen.

Probably had to do with him not being royalty.

Peril peered out the door as Hawk walked past, a cube of ice wrapped in a fur balanced on his back. She had to admit, this was probably the best plan anyone could have come up with. Her talons braided themselves into the chain around her neck as she tried to eye customers without looking too suspicious.

Most seemed ordinary; a few NightWings sitting together and chatting in low tones of their own language, Naarvic, or the SkyWings who had taken over one of the larger, round tables and were very loudly debating over the menu in clicks and screeches of Kikili. She caught a few notes of Kelsvaric from an IceWing brooding to himself over a bowl of noodles, and occasionally the room was briefly brightened by a SeaWing making a point.

Peril knew some words from each language; Pyrrhian was a chaotic blend of all of them, and so there were some points in conversation where she could pick up a few terms through the accent. (That was the only flaw in the plan; Peril’s assumption that dragons everywhere spoke like royalty, or the Dragonets of Destiny. It hadn’t occurred to her to consider that most dragons would speak their own language, given the chance.)

Her attention, along with that of the room, was drawn to a brief outburst from the back corner. Three SandWings were standing around a table, and arguing intensely with each other in hisses and tail flicks - she caught the words ‘attack’ and ‘secret’. Two of them were larger, one nearly black and the other a mottled brown, facing down a smaller, darker brown dragon. From their facial structure, Peril guessed the older two were related, but she wasn’t sure about the youngest.

With a frustrated growl, the brown dragon stormed out of the door. The older two watched them leave and then began bickering with each other, at which point the dappled brown left to follow and the black pulled out a money purse and began to count coins.

The rest of the tavern had turned back to their own issues, save Peril. She carefully got up from the fireplace and tried to look inconspicuous as she took the largest possible path towards the door. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say her scales listened, their heat dimming.

The night air was cold on her face when she ducked through the doorway. She looked up at the sky, surprised, only to see the almost-full face of Pyrrhia’s largest moon, Hina, shining back at her. She frowned at it; the Hunter’s Moon was the cusp of the change from autumn into winter, and she couldn’t believe how much time she’d lost lounging around the city. The fact that it was Scarlet’s haunt that towered over her seemed like a distant memory, tempered into something softer by Ruby and Harrier under the crown.

“Cactus barbs, Shai, speak Pyrrhian!”

Peril snapped out of her thoughts, her scales blazing red as she cursed herself out for getting distracted. The two dragons were a good distance down the street, with the larger trailing the smaller; they had been the one who shouted.

The smaller snapped something back, flicking their tail barb up for emphasis, and the larger grimaced. Peril did her best to walk casually behind them, as if she was simply heading home for the night, and lifted the metal sash off to better blend in.

The brown dragon turned around to yell something at the larger, and their eyes met Peril’s. They squinted suspiciously before turning back to the other dragon. “Go stick your face in the sand, Bull! I’m not a child any more.”

Bull glanced back at Peril as well, and continued in a quieter tone. “I’m still your brother, and this plan of yours is dangerous. You’re going to get hurt.”

“I’m only going to get hurt if you insist on dragging your tail along,” Shai replied, her teeth bared. “You’re too big to hide.”

“I’m not letting you go alone,” Bull said, his tone just as firm.

“I’ll go,” Peril blurted from behind them.

“You don’t even know what we’re talking about,” Bull said, at the same time that Shai muttered, “I knew we should have kept speaking Sarbic.”

Peril summoned up the most confidence she could muster. “Well, I’m the best bodyguard you could ever have. I’m small, I’m fast, and I’ve got FIRESCALES.”

Shai was giving her a quizzical look, but Bull at least seemed to be pretending to take her seriously. “I thought they killed SkyWings like that.”

“They,” Peril faltered, “they tried. But… but they DIDN’T.”

“Are we adopting another sibling?” A deep voice asked from behind her.

Peril resisted the urge to jump out of her scales, guessing that would not get her any bodyguard points. The black dragon from the tavern had walked up behind her, and now passed her to stand beside the other two. They were the tallest, and likely the oldest, and now that they were standing closer to her she could see that their scales reflected yellow in the moonlight.

“We might be hiring Shai a bodyguard, actually,” Bull answered.

The black dragon burst out laughing as Shai bristled angrily, gesturing her tail barb up in a way that was probably very rude. Bull seemed a little put out by the reaction.

Shai shoved the black dragon with a wing. “If she’s my bodyguard, I’ll decide whether or not she’s coming, Scarab.”

Her brothers gave each other a knowing look, and Scarab had to bite back another laugh. Shai’s ears were pinned back as she glared at them.

She turned back to Peril, eyes still narrowed. “What’s your name, firescales?”

“Peril.”

“What skills do you have?”

“Years of… battle experience,” she paused, pushing back the blood-red memories that always came with thinking about it. She hadn’t realized how little she had thought about fighting in the past weeks. “And firescales. I’m a strong flier and can hunt and pay for myself.”

Shai gave her an approving look. “Are you willing to risk your life to protect me - and my brothers - if it’s required?”

“Yes,” Peril answered, losing some conviction.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes.”

Shai grinned, showing off her bright white teeth. “Tell me, firescales, have you ever been to the desert?”


	8. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing notes:  
> \- Retconned in Ruby's banishment of Peril because I forgot it happened (oops)  
> \- Fixed some wording in previous chapters to go with it + cleared up some confusing sentences  
> \- Changed uses of Kingdom to Queendom bc dragons put more priority on their Queens
> 
> General notes:  
> \- I've realized that some things coming up are going to seem out of left field bc I kind of started smack in the middle of my rewrite instead of at the beginning because I wanted to write lesbi - Peril. I promise there is a cohesive story behind this but there are probably going to be some parts you're just going to have to roll with. Sorry about that.

Shai filled her in on the briefest of details as they walked back to Peril’s place. The three dragons were traders, and were convinced someone was trapping merchants along the paths to the stronghold; the SandWing capital city. Peril found herself more and more aware of how little she knew of the world as Shai described the expanse of desert and the stronghold’s walls keeping out the sandstorms and the freedom that came from nothing between sand and sky.

She also couldn’t tell if Shai was just talking about the desert to keep her from asking any questions about the attacks.

Peril didn’t really mind. If she kept listening, Shai would probably slip up at some time, and it was probably useful information for her to be remembering. Her voice reminded Peril of Clay’s, kind of; it sounded nice and warm, or, it made Peril feel nice and warm. She didn’t know many dragons with deeper voices, but she was beginning to feel like she should try and meet more.

“We’re going to go ahead and pack up our things,” Shai told Peril, standing outside of her door. “I’m not sure about you, with the scales, but the heat of the desert is too much for us in daylight. We’ll leave later, probably around lunchtime, so we can start moving our schedules to flying at night.”

“There’s nothing to worry about at night except birds,” Scarab added, licking his lips. “And those are just snacks.”

“We’ll meet up at the lowest gate,” Shai continued, ignoring him. “You can sit up on the cliffs or something if you want to avoid the crowd, just keep your wings open so we can see you.”

“Of course,” Peril answered.

Shai turned away to leave, and Peril felt a sudden urge to ask for her help in preparing to leave. She didn’t have anything to pack, but she wouldn’t mind hearing Shai tell her more about the potential dangers ahead, even if it meant staying up all night.

By the time Peril remembered she had to write a letter, the three dragons were already a ways down the road. Peril, still on her porch, debated chasing after them for a moment; she didn’t want to be an inconvenience, but it would be worse if she put off sending the letter.

“Shai!” Peril yelled after her. “Shai, can you come back here for a second?”

Shai turned to look at her, as did her brothers. Scarab whispered something in her ear, but broke off laughing as Shai punched his side with her wing. She hesitated as Scarab’s side, torn between glaring at him and looking at Peril, but eventually rolled her shoulders and padded back up the street, ears pinned back.

“What’s up?” Shai asked, her voice forcing itself into sounding casual. Over her back, Peril could see her brothers staring at them, dark eyes reflecting pale in the moonlight. Scarab seemed to be whispering animatedly to Bull, but if the mottled dragon was replying, it was too soft for Peril to hear.

Peril remembered Shai was waiting for an answer.

“Could you, um, come in for a second?”

Peril stepped back from the doorway. Shai stood perfectly still on the porch, looking rather surprised, and then seemed to lurch into motion all at once and duck into the room. She still seemed tense once she was inside, but Peril couldn’t really blame her; if she didn’t have firescales, she wouldn’t want to be trapped in a small room with someone who  _ did _ either.

If Peril didn’t know better, she would have thought that Shai was  _ blushing  _ under her dark scales. “What do you need?”

“I, uh, I have a friend, a pen pal, kind of, and I write to him pretty often, and I don’t want him to think something bad has happened,” Peril stumbled over her words as she tried to put together a feasible lie, trying to look like she wasn’t looking into Shai’s dark brown eyes. To see if Shai thought she was lying, of course. Even though she was. “But the dragon who usually writes for me - because of the firescales - probably won’t be here until tomorrow evening, so would it be okay for me to ask you to write something for me? Two somethings. Actually. Two letters.”

Shai seemed to relax, a little, but the barbed tip of her tail still twitched. “Sure, no problem. I’ll need to borrow your table, though.”

“Of course,” Peril withdrew to the back of the room, giving Shai more than enough room to move around. 

The brown dragon sat down beside the table, only taking a second to peer into the holes in the walls where the wrapped scrolls were stored. She pulled two of the tubes out, and then lifted her wing - she had a bag looped around her foreleg, Peril hadn’t noticed it in the dark - and fished out a small jar of red ink. 

“Alright, what am I writing?” Shai asked, pulling the stopper out of the jar with her teeth.

“Oh, um, the first one is to Clay,” Peril answered, taking a cautious step closer to look over her shoulder. Shai kept looking back like she expected Peril to attack her. “Just write that, uh, everything’s fine here, but I got a job so I’m going to the Sand Queendom and won’t be able to write to him for a while.”

Peril watched as Shai dipped a talon into the red ink and scratched it across the paper, creating vertical strings of characters. Peril really hoped Shai was writing down what she’d said; her scales had kept her from learning to write, and Scarlet’s neglect had kept her from learning how to read.

“And say that everything is super great.” Peril added, watching intently. “But write great like, three times in big letters.”

Shai presumably obliged. 

Peril nodded down at it. “Okay, yes, sign that one from me. Peril. The other one is to Queen Ruby-”

“You’re sending a letter to the Queen?” Shai asked skeptically. 

“I’m not lying to you. Plus, YOU’RE the one writing it.” Peril retorted, huffing out a breath of smoke. “And you’re writing it to Queen Ruby.”

Shai stared her down for a moment, but turned to the paper and wrote out the name. “What do you want me to write?”

“Um, say that I’ve taken a guard as a bodyjob - a JOB as as BODYGUARD - and I’m planning to leave the city tomorrow. How late is it, actually? It might be today. Don’t write that in, just write in what I say that is meant for writing.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m doing that,” Shai replied dryly. 

“I need permission to leave the city at noon,” Peril corrected herself, “with a group of traders who are heading into the Sand Queendom. I am absolutely not going to get myself into ANY trouble and my companions will read letters for me if you mail them while I am gone.”

“Will we now?” Shai grumbled.

“And they are VERY NICE,” Peril stated firmly, “and VERY HELPFUL and I am ALSO these things so we are going to get along GREAT.”

Shai finished writing, rolling her eyes as she did so. “So, you need to ask the Queen’s permission to leave the city? Seems a bit unusual.”

“My mother worked in the palace,” Peril not-quite-lied. “So I do, too. I have to get her permission to leave so that it’s not, um, what’s the word -”

“Deserting?” Shai offered.

“Deserting. Or spying, or treason, or - I guess those are the same thing? Spying and treason? Mostly I just don’t want to get arrested, or like, super murdered.”

The brown dragon nodded. “Reasonable.”

Peril nodded back.

Shai stuck her inky talon into her mouth and recapped the bottle. She rolled up the scrolls too, all in silence, and then pulled her claw out and inspected it for remaining dye. Satisfied, she leaned back from the desk and looked at Peril.

Peril blinked back at her. 

It felt like Shai was waiting for something, giving her an expectant look. Peril’s back sizzled into awkward shades of yellow as she looked back. Her wide eyes searched Shai’s face, trying to remember words. There was something she wanted to say, but it kept slipping out of her grasp before she found the shape of it. 

“THANK YOU.” Peril nearly shouted, breaking the tense silence. Shai had the restraint to not jump, but her tail barb flicked up instinctually. “You were VERY HELPFUL and I am THANKFUL.”

“...You’re welcome?” Shai asked after a pause.

Peril still felt that there was something she very much wanted to say. It was one of those things other dragons liked to hear, but… it felt very distant and very close all at once and it was VERY frustrating. 

“I can drop these off for delivery on the way home, if you want,” Shai gestured to the letters. “I’ll be passing right by.”

“That would be great.” Peril answered. 

Shai was  _ still  _ looking like Peril was forgetting something, but she got up and walked to the door. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Peril considered asking if she’d stay to tell her about the desert, but decided against it. After all, she only had one bed, and firescales. Always the firescales. How did SandWings deal with having a big stinger on their tails, anyway? Peril decided she was going to look at their tails more often.

“Yes,” Peril said, out loud. “I’ll see you tomorrow. At noon at the gate.”

“At noon at the gate,” Shai confirmed, sounding… disappointed? “Have a good night, Peril.”

“You too,” Peril answered. 

Shai left into the night, taking the letters with her. Peril stood in the room for a while, looking over at the table, and then at the bed, and then at the kitchen and the water room and the porch and the street. She was… sad? Disappointed? Scared?

Scared must have been it. After all, Shai had taken the letters with her. That meant Peril HAD to leave, since everyone thought she was going to, and now that she was actually considering the outcome of that plan she realized she might not be allowed to come back  _ in  _ to the Sky Queendom without a Very Important Message and that was beginning to feel more and more scary the more she thought about it. She decided to stop thinking about it.

_ It has to be the letters _ , Peril thought as she hopped up on to her bed and fanned a wing to blow out the torches.  _ Because otherwise, it would have to be  _ Shai  _ that I was feeling sad about. And why would it be Shai? _

 

~~~~~

 

Peril awoke to a letter on her table, with fancy trim and a wax seal. She looked at it for a while, frowning - it made her feel more vulnerable than she liked, to know that any dragon could just waltz in and leave things on her stuff, AND she couldn’t even OPEN IT - and then, having nothing better to do, went and sat on the porch to sulk and-or wait for Dawn or Cardinal to check in.

She watched the dragons going by for a while, sometimes catching a few words, sometimes not. She wasn’t really listening. If she ignored them, they’d more likely to ignore her, even if it was kind of usual for anyone to just sit around outside their homes. When she was younger, Peril tried to tell Queen Scarlet about how nice it felt to have the sun on her scales, but the queen had just brushed it off as her wanting more excuses to fly around.

Peril scraped the dirt out from between two tiles with a claw. Another reason her firescales made her weird, she guessed.

Thinking about that reminded her that if she  _ did  _ have permission to leave the Sky Queendom she wouldn’t be able to come back, and thinking about  _ that _ reminded her about the events that had led to her banishment, and all at once she was digging her claws into the stone and curling her tail in anxious knots and - 

“You okay there, firescales?”

Peril’s eyes snapped open and she jumped back, slamming herself into the wall. She regained her composure while staring at Shai, whose tail had flicked up slightly in surprise. She had expected the drakka to be reaching out to comfort her, like so many others, but Shai was just… standing there, on the side of her porch, looking concerned from a safe distance. Something about the brown SandWing’s presence made it easier to come back from that dark corner of herself. It must have been the paycheck, not that Peril had cared much for wealth before the offer.

“We’re all packed up, and I came to see if you were ready to go; no use waiting until lunch to fly if we’re all up and about anyway.” Shai explained, tilting her head up in the general direction of the sky. “We can leave, if you-”

“I want to get out of the city,” Peril interrupted, realizing after she said it how harsh it had been. “Please.”

Shai looked up towards the castle and for a moment, she looked as though she was going to mention something; her chest puffed out, and her mouth opened just the slightest bit, and then Peril was wondering why she was paying such close attention to such small movements and also why it made her feel so weirdly warm inside, and by the time that thought had whipped between her talons and disappeared Shai was looking back at her again.

Instead, she asked, “You probably have a letter, from the Queen, right? Do you need me to read it for you?”

“A letter,” Peril thought out loud. Her thoughts returned to her in a flood, drowning out any memories from the castle above. “Yes! Yes, there is a letter, and I can’t read it, but definitely not because I don’t know how to read, only because if I try to open it it’ll burn.”

“Sure, firescales.” Shai stepped inside, calling back to Peril, “Scarab and Bull are probably on the way, so keep an eye out for them.”

Peril obediently waited on the porch, looking upwards. She kept an ear flicked back, waiting for Shai to read the scroll aloud, but heard only the rustling of paper; she hoped the queen had been discreet in what she wrote, but she trusted Shai to keep it a secret. Maybe not from Peril, though, she really needed to know the answer.

She was about to ask if everything was alright when she spotted Scarab and Bull circling above the street. Peril was wary of flashing her wings to them with so many dragons walking past, but luckily Bull found her without it, calling Scarab in until the two of them came in to land together.

“Hey, Peril, hope we’re not intruding,” Scarab said to Peril as he landed on the porch opposite her. “After all, our prep interrupted your quality time last night!”

“That is NOT what it was!” Peril heard Shai slam the paper down a second before she stormed out of the entrance, glaring at her brothers as she did so. “And I swear as soon as you’re within claw’s reach you are going to be getting a fistful of them right in the -”

Scarab shoved out a wing to give her a friendly shove, but caught her mid-step. Her tirade was cut off by a startled yelp as she twisted to see where she was landing. Peril watched her fall as if in slow motion; powerful muscles under Shai’s scales flexed with her turn, and Peril was caught by the sudden realization of just how much stronger than her Shai was. A sparkling, twinkling feeling shot through Peril, from the tip of her beak to the very last scale on her tail.

Shai would have caught herself without a problem, if Peril wasn’t in the way.

Shai crashed into Peril’s shoulder with a grunt, pushing them both out into the street. Peril fanned her wings quickly, trying to startle other dragons out of her space as quickly as possible as she stared down at Shai, fearing the worst.

The brown drakka was holding her muzzle with a claw, but slowly drew it away, her scales slick with blood. There was a heartbeat where Shai was staring at the blood and Peril was staring at her face, unmarked by burns, before Shai got to her claws and started cursing at her brothers so vehemently - “she has  _ firescales,  _ you sunstroked jackrabbit son of a-” - that a few of the strangers on the street flew off to do their shopping somewhere else. Scarab was doing a great job of looking unrepentant and impatient with her hissing up at him and Bull anxiously circling above all three.

Peril touched her own scales tentatively, her heart racing as thoughts of the arena shot through her mind; no, they were still hot, dangerously so. Was there some kind of spell Peril didn’t know about, protecting the SandWing? She had felt something before Shai had hit her, after all. Peril didn’t  _ think _ that was what an enchantment usually felt like, but she hadn’t ever really felt one before, either. 

Trying to wipe the last of her bloody nose away with her already bloodied claw, Shai turned away from Scarab’s obnoxious grin and back to Peril. “The letter says you have permission to leave the city, if you’re still up for coming.”

“Y-yeah. For sure. Uh, watch the scales,” Peril answered, still glancing between her shoulder and Shai’s muzzle.

Peril gave her more than enough room to take off and then followed her up, Shai discussing something quickly with Bull before Scarab caught up. Peril wanted to ask Shai if she was enchanted, or something, just to see if her magical theory was right… but what if she was? What if Shai truly didn’t need a bodyguard, and Peril was only hired because of her brothers’ insistence? What if she wasn't, and something had gone wrong with Peril's firescales, and Shai sent her back to Jade Academy?

And most importantly, why did the idea of being useless to Shai _hurt_ so much?


	9. Chapter 7

It only took two day’s flight to reach the desert by the merchant’s path. The trail was always below them; an ancient road, worn wide and flat and probably once bare dirt or stone, but now greatly overgrown save for patches cleared by dragons setting up camp for the night or the occasional trail of something heavy being pulled through the long grass. Even in places where shrubs or small trees had taken hold, it was still easy to see from the sheer magnitude; the closest thing Peril had ever seen to it was the ancient trail of a lava flow, where the black stone had smoothed over anything that had once been underneath it. 

When they made camp on the second night, comfortably tired from the day’s flight down the mountains, Peril asked about it.

“It’s all grit between the teeth now,” Shai replied, “but most dragons will tell you it was built by scavengers, back before the Scorching. They used to trade a lot with the desert ones, up in the mountains, or the whatever-it-was-before-the-desert ones. None of the other roads are as clear as this one.”

“Grit in the teeth,” Peril repeated, questioning.

“Oh, you know,” Shai answered, “rumor, legend. Words that you don’t want to keep in your mouth. I guess it’s a pretty SandWing expression. Not many other tribes live around that much grit.”

“Pretty SandWing,” Peril repeated, quietly to herself.

“Anyways, we should be out in the desert by tomorrow, and then we’ll be flying a little slower. I didn’t want to dissuade you from coming, but we are still merchants; we’ll be taking a pretty long path to get to the stronghold, and the queen.”

“How long?”

Shai looked up, thinking. “Two weeks, maybe three? Depends on where the water is.”

Peril made a frustrated, whiny noise, and Shai seemed to catch that it was more exasperation than disagreement, because she laughed. 

“I promise, it’ll seem faster once we’re busy. Thinking about it as just days makes it seem boring to me, too, but we still have to make our trip profitable and we can’t risk going without water. We’ll be flying at night, like I said, but there’s a lot of distance between springs, so there’ll be times when we won’t fly as long as we could.”

Shai dropped into a comfortable quiet.

“Tell me more.” Peril insisted. “I don’t mean - I’m not teasing. I want to know.”

Shai might have smiled, but in the dimming light Peril wasn’t sure.

“Well,” she tilted her head, a motion both considering and apologetic. “When I was a hatchling, our mother used to tell us stories about the sand. It might not be what you meant, but I could tell you one about the springs in the desert.”

Peril stared at her, enthralled already. 

Shai shifted her position; she had been lying down, but she sat up now and cupped her wings around the fire. Behind her, Scarab made a muffled protest at losing the heat, but she ignored him. Balanced easily on her haunches, Shai towered over the flames, their flicker casting her scales in sunset and night. Peril got the sense that she enjoyed feeling dramatic.

“Before dragons built cities, before scavengers, there was a dragon so ancient that he had forgotten his name,” Shai began in a low tone, leaning out over the flames towards Peril. “And the whole desert was under his protection. Dragons still hid in caves, fearing the metal claws of scavengers who called themselves Kings. This great dragon feared no blade or wound, for he was beyond death and beyond harm.

“But he cared deeply for the dragons of the desert and he wished only for them to be safe, and he was lonely, for even a dragon’s longest lifespan was so much shorter than his own, that he felt he barely had time to know them before they returned to the sand. 

“One day, one of the scavenger Kings walked out into the sand to meet him, and said that he had once been a dragon too. The King told him that if he, too, walked among the scavengers, he would be able to convince them to spare the dragons of the desert and live in peace.

“And the ancient dragon, wanting this more than anything else, enchanted an armband as the King told him to - for he was an animus, and that was why he had lived so long - and was turned into a scavenger.

“But then the King attacked him, and bound his limbs, and walked him into the city, for the King was no dragon but a snake. The scavengers there ridiculed him and tortured him, the guardian of the desert reduced to nothing, and there was nothing he could do to change it. 

“Eventually, another scavenger took pity on him, and cut loose his bonds. They ran out together into the desert, and the ancient dragon tore off his armband and took flight, carrying the scavenger who had rescued him in one giant paw.

“But when he took flight, he saw that the King had not kept his word, and while the guardian was trapped and tortured the dragons of the desert were slaughtered and left in the sun to rot. The guardian was wracked with hatred and grief, and in his anger forgot the scavenger he was carrying. 

“The scavenger was killed, and where his blood fell, the springs formed in the sand, returning life to the bloodstained waste. The guardian was brought from his rage by the sight of the fresh water spilling over the sand, and grieved anew for the death of the only scavenger that had helped him. Cursing the scavengers, he retreated deep into the wastes where they could not go, and coiled himself around the dead scavenger, and stripped himself of his enchantments and died.

“But in death, his great scales became the strongest stone, and the scavenger became a bottomless lake of water fresh and clear, protected from the world by the body of the guardian. When the Scorching came, and the scavengers were driven out, dragons found the ancient lake, buried in the sand after so long, and they too wept as the guardian had, but in joy, for now they could build a city where they could stay for good, and they have been there ever since.”

“Where is it?” Peril asked.

“Under the stronghold,  _ of course _ ,” Shai answered, leaning back and looking as proud as if she’d built it herself. “The capital city of the Sand Queendom, Ryvali. Where we’re heading!”

Peril pushed herself up on her forelegs, staring intently across the fire. “I want to go there with you.”

Shai blinked, dropping down from her grand storytelling posture to a more usual sitting one. “We  _ are _ going to the city together.”

“N-no, I mean, I want to see the lake with you. The way you talk about it, I - I can’t imagine seeing it without you there beside me.” Peril felt like she was on the same unsteady ground as she had been when she had told Clay she wanted to leave -  _ but why? I was nervous then because I was saying how I was feeling, but this isn’t like that. Is it? _

Shai was giving her an appraising look, somewhere between being wary and being right. “Well, firescales, you’ll have to remind me to take you on a field trip.”

“And I want to hear more.” Peril added, her drowsiness spurring her on. “More answers about the desert. One question a night, or, I guess a day.”

“One question a night,” Shai agreed, “but I can refuse to answer it.”

“Deal.”

“And I get to ask one back,” Shai corrected, watching Peril intently. “Which you can refuse.”

Peril grinned. “Deal.”

Behind Shai, Scarab grumbled something about that requiring them both to get some sleep during  _ this _ night, and as Shai made disgruntled noises in his general direction about needing to be awake for first watch anyway, Peril curled her tail up over her nose and let herself drift off into sleep.

 

~~~~~

 

Shai lay on her side, head still up, as she watched Peril’s sleeping form across the embers of the fire. She’d been thinking of the day they left almost constantly - especially the first day, when taking off had set her nose bleeding again - trying to come to a conclusion that made sense. Why  _ hadn’t  _ Peril burned her to a crisp when she’d hit her? A story hadn’t been Shai’s ideal method of testing it, but it had worked. 

When Peril had been listening to her, eyes wide and lost in the story like Shai had been as a hatchling, she’d shifted her wings and tail a lot, staying comfortable. Shai had been split between fear for the drakka’s lack of concern and curiosity as the grass she moved on to had failed to burn. It had only browned, not blackened, when the story had ended, and now that she was in a contented sleep, browned it remained.

Shai heard Scarab shifting behind her, and felt rather than saw that he had turned to look at the back of her head.

“You love her,” he said softly.

“I’ve hired her,” Shai rumbled back. “It’s in my best interests that she doesn’t burn us all to death.”

“If that was your motivation, you wouldn’t have hired her to begin with.” She could  _ hear  _ him grinning. “And you’ve been staring at her your whole watch. Admit it, you’re charmed.” 

Shai sighed. “Charmed, maybe. But not in love. We barely know each other.”

“You will, after one question a night for three weeks.”

Shai didn’t bother replying. Her brother  _ was  _ right, after all; that  _ was  _ why she had accepted.

When he continued, his tone was genuine. “She’s a stranger, Shai. She might not feel the same way about you.”

“I know that.”

“I know you know, I’m asking you to remember. You’re my little sister, I don’t want you getting hurt. Neither does Bull.”

“I know that, too.” Shai cast him - and Bull’s quiet, observing eyes behind him - a reassuring glance. “Even if she doesn’t like me like that, I still want to help her. Enough dragons have helped  _ us _ when we needed it. I want to pay it forward -  _ and  _ I think this is going to help her. To be trapped in that city…”

Scarab  _ hmm _ d quietly, admitting defeat. “Be careful. Don’t get burned.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be safe,” Shai muttered, turning back to look at Peril. She was still curled up, and veins of faint light traced between her scales like the edges of the embers in the fire. 

Shai waited in the dark as Scarab and Bull went back to sleep, Bull’s usually quiet presence replaced by wheezy snores. Peril hadn’t moved either; Shai would have expected any formally trained bodyguard to jump up at even the barest note of her voice. Softly, so softly she could barely hear herself, she whispered, “I know a second story about the desert that you might like, firescales.

“In the beginning, before the desert, there was a dragon who was trying to protect her children from a flood. She carried them higher and higher into the sky, but the water kept following her, cresting and dangerous.

“And eventually, she flew up next to the sun, with the water close behind her, and the sun asked, ‘why are you flying so far from your home?’ And she told the sun that the water had swallowed her lair, and her children were all she had left.

“And the sun pitied her, and said ‘your wings are too tired to fly forever. Take a piece of me down, and the water will turn into clouds, and you can return to your home’.

“‘But if I take your gift in my claws, one of my children will fall,’ she pleaded. 

“‘Then take it between your teeth,’ the sun suggested.

“So she did, and she flew back down to the ground, and just like the sun had said, the water turned to steam around her, and the flood receded. But when she landed, the sun’s power continued, turning the grassland where she had once lived into a wide desert. Terrified of the power, the mother dragon screamed, and she swallowed the piece of the sun.

“It turned her dust-yellow scales to a blazing red with heat, and twisted her horns and burned away her crest, and filled her body with agonizing flames, and she became the first SkyWing. Her children screamed, burned by her touch, and fled into the desert, while all of her screams erupted from her mouth as columns of flame.

“Horrified at what she had become, she flew back up to the sun, for her wings were still strong, and she asked the sun to take back the power she had been given.

“‘It is a gift,’ the sun told her. ‘You stopped the flood, and the desert will be your home and will provide for you. You cannot be harmed by any blade or claw, and you can breathe fire to protect yourself.’

“‘But it is burning me up,’ she replied, showing the sun her smoking scales and searing touch. ‘It is too dangerous.’

“‘It is a powerful gift,’ the sun answered, ‘and fearing power allows it to control you. It is a gift. Your scales are dangerous, but they are still your scales. Your teeth and claws are dangerous, but you control them; a hatchling will bite because they fear the pain of their teeth, but that does not mean they should never have them. You -’”

Shai heard Scarab sit up behind her, grumbling something about night watch being the worst thing ever. She hadn’t quite finished her story, but she knew how it ended; thousands of years later, with a blessing punishable by death, all times but one.

Without another word, she let her head drop to her claws and fell asleep.

 

~~~~~

 

Lying perfectly still in the dark, woken by ‘firescales’, back turned to Shai’s now-sleeping figure and wings folded over her head, Peril mouthed the word ‘gift’ and pressed a paw to her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize for this shorter chapter after a longer wait, hopefully things are going to get more fun soon


	10. PART TWO

* * *

 

\- Part Two -

**A Sea of Sand and Stone**

 

* * *

 


	11. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the break! Had a mild cold that, while not awful, definitely got in the way of trying to write things that made sense. Also switched my sleep patterns a bit so I'm more human than vampire, which is nice.  
> A bit of the delay here is also because I've started truly putting down the groundwork for the first arc rewrite (which was previously just a skeleton of plot points) and defining some of the key changes to the second arc. I think it's going to be a... much different story by the end of all this, and I truly hope everyone who's been sticking with me through this first step will enjoy all of what is to come!
> 
> Thank you all so much, truly, for your support and feedback on this story so far. I couldn't have done it without you.

Peril knew what the desert looked like. She’d flown alongside it to reach the Sky Queendom, after all; an expanse of orange-gold-white that seethed heat and crested like an ocean to the horizon. But that didn’t prepare her for what it actually felt to be _in_ it, with seemingly nothing but sand for thousands of dragon-lengths, in a semi-silence broken by the yipping of distant dogs and the ever-present soft hiss of sand on sand. Above her, the sky was clear and dark and draped in glittering stars, and the light of the three moons highlighted the four dragons with silver. It was so incredibly _empty_.

Peril LOVED it.

Even in the mountains, where she was supposed to find her home, there had been the lingering worry of coming too close, touching too much, but here. _Here_ she could truly rule the sky. She almost told Shai she understood how SandWings had a myth for the creation of SkyWings, before she remembered she was supposed to be sleeping when Shai had told it. From how the brown dragon tended to watch her, flying steady as Peril soared up to fully stretch her wings in a series of loops and dives, Peril guessed she was making the same connection anyway.

“Stay within earshot!” Shai called up to her.

Peril replied with a rolling dive, banking out below the three siblings, just because she _could._

“I mean it, firescales!” She insisted, her tone taking a harsh edge. “We’ve found merchants attacked on this path, remember?”

Peril hadn’t remembered, but that didn’t feel important, not with how easily her wide wings found the fading thermals off of the sun-baked sand, and how she could fly with her eyes closed and never hit another dragon. She rolled on to her back to tell Shai exactly that, just in time to see a dark shape hurtle out of the sky and slam down on top of Bull.

Peril had just enough time to swerve out of the way as the two dragons dropped past her, seeing flashes of bright white teeth as they grappled in the air.

Scarab and Shai plummeted past on either side of Peril, silent and with claws outstretched, and Peril hurried to correct her balance and follow them down.

She saw Bull slam into the side of a sand dune, kicking up a silvery froth as he struggled to free himself of the dragon still on his back. He wasn’t usually a talkative dragon, Peril had figured out, but the only reason he wasn’t bellowing in pain was because the black dragon had hooked an elbow around his neck and was slowly crushing it.

Shai dove in, aiming for the black dragon’s outstretched wing, and the attacker twisted with impressive speed to put Bull between the two of them. Shai swerved and plowed into the sand, leaping at the black dragon as soon as she had her footing.

The two of them collided and went rolling through the sand, snarling and snapping. Scarab landed beside Bull, alert for any other attackers, and made sure his brother was alright. Peril circled above them anxiously, wanting to help but terrified of burning Shai in such close quarters.

The black dragon let out a pained yelp as Shai’s hind talons found purchase in the crook of their hind leg, and in their distraction she clamped her teeth around the base of the stranger’s wing and dislocated it with a sickening pop.

Their entire body went limp, only held up by Shai’s teeth, and she gently lowered them to the ground.

Peril took the opening to land, touching down a safe distance from Shai as the drakka spat a mouthful of blood that wasn’t hers out on the sand. The brown dragon gave Peril a pointed look, gesturing down at the black dragon, before loping off to check on Bull.

The black dragon was on their back, throat exposed in submission, though they eyed Peril balefully as though they’d be much more content if they were able to rip _her_ throat out. They were a NightWing, almost black but with the faintest hints of red, and they certainly didn’t _look_ beat up enough to be a roadside bandit, as far as Peril was concerned.

“It’s _you_ ,” they rasped angrily.

Peril blinked down at them. “I’d hope so. It would be weird if I was someone else. Who are _you_?”

“Don’t act stupid,” they growled, baring their teeth. “You’re Queen Scarlet’s monster. Any other mutant like you would already be fed to the birds.”

“Well, if they’re hungry, they’re in luck, because you’re already halfway to carrion!” Peril answered cheerfully, stepping forward and jabbing her talons through the sail of the dragon’s dead wing.

They bit back a hiss of pain. “Morrowseer should have killed you when he had the chance in that bloody arena. With how much blood you have on your name, you’d probably _enjoy_ it.”

Something in their voice lent itself to a meaning much worse than a hobby. Peril pressed another semi-circle of talon holes into their wing, breath hot in her mouth, crowd roaring in her ears, calling for death.

“Why are you here?” She snarled, stepping one simmering paw on the NightWing’s shoulder so she could lean over them and breathe sulphur down their muzzle.

“Certainly not escaping _my_ past, I assure you,” they replied. Their voice was getting shaky, but Peril was beyond noticing. “I’m here because I’m loyal to my flock, not because I can’t face the reality of murdering hundreds of them. It would be so nice if you could relate.”

Peril wasn’t sure if they said anything after that, or if it was just screaming as she seared holes through the dragons’ wings with her forelegs and crumbled away scales on their flanks with her hind talons. It seemed like only a second, forever, before another dragon shoved her aside with a burst of steam and broke her focus.

“That kill was mine!” Peril screeched, her talons skidding in the dirt of the arena as she pounced towards her new opponent. The dragon ducked, their heavy armor weighing them down, and Peril tried to lock her claws underneath the metal to fuse it to their sides; a trick that the Queen adored, singing her praises for the sheer temperature her rage could reach.

But the armor didn’t have straps.

Peril’s claws met only air where there should have been pauldrons, and her chest collided with something soaked and furry that was quickly shoved up over her head. Her opponent had height on her - Scarlet must have put more dirt in some sections - and was using the damp fur to push her down into the… sand?

Since when did her opponents bring water into the arena, anyway?

All at once, reality snapped back into focus.

“-the desert, here with Shai and Bull and Scarab, heading to meet Queen Thorn, as a bodyguard,” Shai was saying, her voice strong but muffled. “A dragon attacked us, but we’re fine. We’re okay. You don’t need to fight.”

“What did I do?” Peril murmured.

Shai took a step back, holding a large pelt in her mouth that had certainly seen better days. The parts that weren’t dripping were practically toasted. She dropped it, and then glared at it like it tasted as bad as it was beginning to smell.

“Scarab and Bull took the NightWing to the nearest town, since we need to get more water now, and there’ll be a guard post there to deal with the NightWing,” Shai told her, pointedly not answering her question. “If there were any others with them, they’re likely not going to attack with you around, so we’re just going to stop here until tomorrow night.”

“What did I _do_?” Peril repeated, her voice a little stronger. Already, the arena was slipping through her grasp, leaving a blinding void between flying free in the desert and lying sprawled in the sand. “Shai, please.”

“I don’t want to tell you!” The brown dragon snapped, her tail flicking up. “I don’t ever want to have to think about what I just saw ever again!”

“You knew I had firescales!” Peril protested. “I told you!”

“I didn’t think you’d ever use them like _that_!” Shai’s wings snapped open as she stared daggers at Peril, but there was a tremble to them; an undercurrent of fear. “I didn’t think any dragon would do that to another one!”

“They called me a monster!”

“Are you sure that you aren’t-” Shai snapped her mouth shut, quickly turning away.

Peril wished she was hot enough to melt sand, so she could bury herself in it and never come out.

In a cold tone, Shai continued, “If you touch another dragon like that while under my employment ever again, I will fire you and then turn you in to the queen myself.”

“You hired me to protect you!” Peril shouted.

“I didn’t hire you for violence!” Shai shouted right back. “I did the fighting, and you killed a dragon who couldn’t even fly!”

“I was kind of raised to do exactly th-” Peril’s reply caught in her throat. “They… died?”

Shai wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Protests bubbled in her chest. “I didn’t - I didn’t mean to -”

“Shut up,” Shai interrupted, her voice quiet and hard. “If you tell me that you can kill a dragon without meaning to, as quickly as that, I’m sending you back to the Sky Queendom.”

Peril looked down at her claws.

“What _was_ that?” Shai asked. Out of the edge of Peril’s eye, her brown scales were, for a moment, SkyWing red. “What made you fight like that?”

Peril’s mind raced for an answer, and latched on to a lie. “Training during the war. My mother worked in the palace and got special privileges when I was hatched with firescales so that I could be used as a weapon. The fighting had been going on for ten years, and the queen was… desperate. That’s why I needed the Queen’s permission to leave the city, because I’m under the Queen’s employment.”

Lying to Shai felt like tearing her own scales out by the roots, or her talons burning holes through her wings, and Shai was still glaring at her, but at least she’d lowered her tail barb. Peril despised herself for how much trust she’d let Shai give her; the SandWing deserved to know that she was putting her faith in a monster.

“I was the terror of the skies,” Peril said, her voice coming out of some other dragon that she had hoped she was forgetting. “My only role was to kill on the Queen’s order, and she had been in charge of me since I was a dragonet. I never knew battles that didn’t end in death.”

“Neither of us are much older than dragonets,” Shai offered, lying down in the sand somewhat beside Peril. “Loss makes elders of us both.”

“You’re not leaving.”

Shai gave her a tip of her head in acknowledgement. “I’m not.”

“I just killed somebody.”

“And I am absolutely not a fan,” Shai said, giving Peril a glance to accentuate her point, “but… if I wasn’t worried about Bull, I probably would have killed them myself. I’m sorry for getting angry at you, but… three moons, Peril, that’s something I don’t think mortal eyes were meant to see.”

“You’d have killed them even now that the war is over?” Peril asked. Belatedly, “sorry.”

Shai laughed bitterly. “If you think it’s over, you’ve been living under a rock.”

Peril thought back to the caves of Jade Mountain. “I might have been.”

“Putting Thorn in charge just changed the subject, not the story,” Shai said, looking up at the stars, worry painted across her sharp features. “If you spend twenty years of your life fighting for someone, and they die, you’re more likely to find a new leader than give up. And after the flock has been divided between the Princesses for so long, there’s a lot of dragons hungry for power. Some just use the chaos to raid merchants on the trading trails, some use it for arson and bombings, some use it for kidnapping and murder. The Queen has a strong grip on what goes on within the capital, but anywhere else? Good luck.”

“You seem to care a lot about it.”

“Of course I care about it. They’re my flock; it’s the lives of my family,” Shai’s voice wavered, “and friends who are at stake.”

“Your parents?” Peril guessed.

Shai lilted back towards frosty. “Is that tonight’s question?”

Peril considered. Last night’s question had been whether or not cactus juice would make her breath smell, which at the time - with Scarab insisting that it would be fine with the largest grin on his face - had been very important knowledge. (The answer had been fine on the breath, but that the particular plant she was considering would turn her teeth green for a week.)

“Yeah, that’s my question.”

“Our mother - the one who raised us - was a follower of the sand.” Shai began, rocking slightly as if to get more comfortable. “She wore a veil most of the time, like the other followers. She only took it off after sunset, and only if we were alone. She used to tell me that it was for her own safety, so the sun wouldn’t blind her to the way of the sand. I thought she meant physically, but... I think to her it was different.”

Peril gazed up at the stars rather than looking at Shai, fearful her expression would be taken as disbelief. The brown dragon was, in turn, looking off across the dunes lit with the faint glow of a coming dawn.

“The War of Succession was a terrible time for all SandWings, but especially the followers. They were banned from entering cities, and mistrusted by their own kind. No matter which side a dragon was on, they were always sure one of the followers was a spy sent by another, and the followers couldn’t remove their veils without breaking their rites. We - my brothers and I - were old enough to become followers by then, but our mother didn’t want us to be targets like she was.”

Shai’s voice tightened. “On my fifth birthday, dragons started attacking the followers outside of the cities, and the Princesses ignored the conflict. Most of them - the followers - died trying to stay in the desert, and some fled. Our mother dropped us off near the border, and we’ve been trading between the Sky Kingdom and the desert ever since.”

“Do you know what happened to her?” Peril asked quietly.

Shai shook her head. “I hope she’s still out there somewhere, settled in the sand and praying for us to come home. But we haven’t seen her since.”

“I’m sorry,” Peril whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t. Would be useless to ask if you did.”

Peril wanted to say something, but the idea was unsteady behind her teeth; something about mothers and murders that ducked away from her like she was pushing it out of reach with each struggling grasp, a wild animal had grown large and dangerous inside the tiny cage it used to fit, carrying its prison like armor, and refused to be freed.

She found her hands were shaking.

“I snapped,” she said softly, her voice trembling. “That dragon attacked you, and I just… I lost… everything.”

Shai murmured consolingly.

“I don’t think I know how to fight like an ordinary dragon.” Peril continued, watching her shivers send waves through the sand. “Just how to kill like a monster.”

“If you want to learn how to fight… properly, I can teach you.” Shai offered.

Peril looked towards her, but Shai’s dark eyes were unreadable, glinting silver in the moonlight. For a moment, she thought of the Eye of Onyx, the shining black stone set in ancient gold.

“I don’t want to hurt you by accident if you tried to fight me.” Peril admitted. “There won’t always be a wet blanket around to keep you safe.”

“I hope there’ll always be a nice SkyWing with firescales around, though,” Shai replied.

Peril wished she had spent more time around dragons, because Shai’s body language was conveying emotions she didn’t understand. Why was she fidgeting with her talons? Why was her one ear flicking? Why did she keep glancing between Peril and her own claws? Why did she seem so anxious over learning to fight?

Well, Peril knew the answer to the last one. A white-hot bolt of guilt burrowed deep into her bones, clenching her talons into fists in the sand. What dragon _wouldn’t_ be scared of spending time with her?

“We’ll try it, anyway, wet blanket and all,” Shai said softly. Peril caught the underlying hum of disappointment in her voice and bit her own tongue to keep from growling. “We’ll figure it out. I promise."

“Is this what friends do for each other?” Peril asked, and then winced when she realized how sad it sounded.

Shai hesitated for a moment, her mouth slightly open as she considered. “...Yes, this is what friends do.”

 _Disappointed in that, too,_ Peril noted as they lapsed back into silence.

“Do I still get a paycheck if I’m a terrible bodyguard?” Peril asked, forcing her voice into a better mood.

Shai laughed, and while it was quiet, it was genuine, and Peril couldn’t help but laugh too. The tension almost eased, they settled down in the sand to wait for Bull and Scarab to return.


	12. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the wait! Also, big news, this story is currently third-ranked in the entire FANDOM on this site - so if you've been reading and enjoying, give that kudos button a click. It means a lot! <3

Bull and Scarab weren’t back until long after dawn, giving Peril more than enough time to alternate between completely draining her energy in panicked ramblings about having killed someone and then power-nap her way back to normal. Shai paced a wide circle through the night, keeping half an eye out for any incoming dragons and the other half out for any small animals she could snack on.

The two brothers arrived heavy with water bags and looking rather toasty from the heat of the day’s full light. Bull quietly began unpacking everything, settling down in the light while favoring his right foreleg and the wide swath of bandages around the shoulder. Scarab spent a few minutes dramatically flopping through the sand before Shai finally hauled him into the shade by his tail. 

Peril lay in the hot sand, curled up with her tail under her chin, unbothered by the sweltering, dry heat of the day. She resisted the temptation to eavesdrop on the hushed conversation Scarab had started with Shai while she helped him preen a few damaged scales free. No, eavesdropping was RUDE, and Peril was NOT going to be rude. Not after what had just happened.

Instead, she watched Bull’s steady organization; the mottled brown SandWing was so much like Shai, she couldn’t help but think back to the drakka’s casual mention of her mother being the one that raised her. Was one of the siblings adopted? She would pin Scarab as the odd dragon out, given the chance.

He had unpacked their bags completely, and was sorting through the contents spread in a wide circle around him. Peril found her thoughts slowing to match his calm, almost dream-like movements as he trailed a claw over a line of quills and set them all into line. His smiled softly as he picked up the line and wrapped it back up in the bag.

“Do you want any help?” Peril asked quietly.

Bull carried on with lining up another two rows - one of carved bone pendants, one of what looked like bejeweled talon files - and after the second, glanced briefly at Peril and gave the smallest shake of his head.

Peril settled herself more comfortably in the sand, watching contentedly as Bull continued with his rows. Peril wasn’t sure what Bull’s body language was; but then again, she didn’t know that about pretty much every dragon. “May I talk, or should I be quiet?”

He waited four rows before answering, his wide hands carefully wrapping a stack of beautifully painted bowls. “You can talk,” he answered slowly, “just don’t… push.”

Peril nodded, waiting until he’d returned to lining things up. The words piled up on her tongue, as if adding one more minute to the three days she’d been holding them back was altogether Too Much To Ask.

“I don’t think I know how to be calm,” she admitted. “I thought I got close to figuring it out  in the Sky Kingdom, but I think there was still something, like… like I’d shed an irritating scale, but the gap wasn’t growing in. Then we were flying in the desert, and I thought I had it then, but then I… lost it. With the attack.” Peril struggled to fit her feelings to a spoken language, thinking briefly, bitterly, if there were words for this in kikili. “It’s like… it’s like I had a campfire, and I left it, and I know that I put it out, but I keep having to check on it to make sure and whenever I go back I end up lighting it again instead of leaving it alone to cool. Does that make sense?”

Bull straightened and stacked a line of dyed leather wristbands. “I think so.”

“I don’t think I know where the campfire is, though. I just keep running into it and the flames take me by surprise. I want to remember so I can leave it for good and finally move on.” Peril’s voice caught in her throat. “I would have killed Shai.”

Bull offered no words as Peril’s claws worked through the sand. He quietly repacked three even pyramids of scrolls, taking a moment to unfold a bent corner, and then replied, “You should talk to Scarab. He might be able to help more than I can.”

“You’re a good listener,” Peril replied. “Scarab…”

“Try,” Bull insisted, in a tone that while very soft and casual, also very clearly signalled an end to their conversation.

Peril looked back over at Scarab and Shai; Scarab was still sprawled in the shade, looking a bit like he’d been run over (he tended to look like that a lot, with how lanky he was), but Shai had wandered off to a patch where exposed stone broke through the sand and had begun preening the scales under her wing.

“It’s the best chance you’ll get,” Bull quietly informed her, not looking up. 

“Is knowing what’s going on around you a SandWing thing?” Peril asked, briefly turning back to him.

“It’s a me thing.” He replied simply.

Peril processed that information for a moment before getting to her feet, rolling the shoulders of her wings in a way she hoped came across as acceptance. Maybe she could find a dictionary on the movement language all other dragons seemed to have learned.

Peril crossed the short stretch of sand between the two brothers. Belatedly, she realized Bull had been resting in the full, scorching light of day; she looked back at him, but he didn’t seem to notice, or at least care. When she turned back to Scarab, the tangled knot of black neck, wings, tail and legs - even more confusing by the shade before her eyes could adjust - was staring up at her with one gold-rimmed eye (that was new, she hadn’t seen him putting it on) from over the elegant curve of his tail barb.

“Peril,” he greeted simply, his teeth a creamy slice in the dark. The expression seemed like an attempt at a smile, ruined slightly by the fact his forehead was against the ground and gravity was pulling his upper lip back over his gums.

“Scarab,” Peril answered, sitting down in the dark and blinking slowly to try and see better. She envied the darkened second eyelid she’d seen on IceWings and SandWings; what she wouldn’t give for a pair of sunglasses that wouldn’t melt off. “Bull said you could help me.”

Scarab very pointedly raised his eye ridges and looked over towards Shai, his head tilting in a very obvious question that Peril missed entirely. He waited for a response as Peril looked down at him waiting for a query.

“...Fill me in,” he said after a few awkward moments. He twisted in a rather abrupt motion, righting himself into a position that more resembled a dragon instead of a snakeskin. 

“I’m not totally sure what it’s about,” Peril began.

“A good place to start,” he remarked, his right talon seeming to take a mind of its own and slip through the sand as his eyes never left Peril’s face.

“I’m worried about having more outbursts and hurting one of you when I don’t mean to.”

“And if you do mean to?” He pulled something out of the dirt; round and kind of papery, and started pulling thin layers off of the outside.

“Then you deserve it. I’m being  _ serious _ .” Peril frowned at him, the tip of her tail bouncing against the sand. Belatedly, Scarab reminded her of that little RainWing she’d seen back at the Academy... Cockatoo? Something like that. He had the same kind of abrupt energy, though having something in his talons seemed to relax the rest of him. “Bull  _ said _ you could help me.”

“Bull doesn’t say many things,” he admitted, glancing over at his brother. “I suppose that would imply he meant it.”

“So you can help me?” Peril pushed. “Please?”

“I know almost nothing about you,” Scarab’s claw accidentally pierced the outer layer of the thing he’d found and pulled out a seed. Frowning, he flicked it away into the sand. “I can help my siblings, because I know who they are and how they react.  _ You  _ are an enigma.”

Peril snorted. “Doesn’t the fact that I killed someone bother you? Shouldn’t you want to help?”

“To us, we were attacked by a dragon that likely meant to kill - or at least leave us to die - and you removed that threat. We each would likely kill to save those we cared about. What I worry about from that fight is not that the attacker died, but that you rounded on us afterward,” he tilted his head slightly towards Shai, “which means there was a part of that battle that you saw and we did not, and you blame whatever that was on the act of killing.”

Peril stared at him.

Scarab gave her a wide grin. 

Shaking her head, Peril asked, “How did you-”

He dismissed the question with the wave of a claw. “Bull has his way of thinking, Shai has hers, I have mine. It’s not important. What is important is  _ yours _ .” He rolled his shoulders stiffly. “Could you lie down or something? I’m sore enough without having to crane my neck up at you.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Peril quickly dropped down on to her belly. “If you know all of that, can you help?”

“ _ Can  _ I help? Yes.”

He had the grin back again. Peril sighed. “ _ Will  _ you help?”

“I’d need to know all that you do first.” Scarab stared at her. The gold rings around his eyes were unnerving to look at; maybe that’s why he’d put them on. “When you’re ready to tell me, I’ll do everything in my power to help. But-”

“You two better not be up to something in my napping spot.”

Both Peril and Scarab all but jumped out of their scales, looking up at Shai’s teasing smile with expressions that - Peril assumed - looked anything but innocent.

Scarab snorted, tossing his seed pod at Shai’s head. “Come on, Shai, you know I’m gay, and even if I wasn’t, I know she’s  _ your _ -”

Shai gave him a fierce glare that was not hindered by the seed pod bouncing off of her crest.

“-your bodyguard.” He finished quickly, turning away to stare up into the branches of the tree.

Shai stared at him a moment longer, bristling, before shaking her scales out and turning to Peril. “You said you wanted to practice fighting, right? If you’re not tired enough yet to sleep, we can start now.”

Peril felt Scarab’s gaze burning holes in her back. “Um, sure, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.” Shai turned away, glancing over her shoulder. “I’m sure the raccoon over there won’t mind you leaving for a bit.”

“Don’t bring my makeup into this!” Scarab protested, his claws flexing like he wished he had another seed pod to throw. “You’re only jealous because you can’t make it symmetrical!”

“You’re jealous because I don’t need it!” She called back with a laugh.

Peril turned to watch her go, turning over Shai’s words in her head. She didn’t know much about makeup, really nothing at all, but if what Shai wore was anything like Scarab’s rings, she  _ was  _ much prettier without it. That was a normal thing to think, right? Peril had not often been the target of compliments.

She didn’t notice the first stick go sailing over her head, burrowing itself in the sand in front of her while Scarab cursed quietly behind her. She  _ did  _ notice the second one, a slightly heavier specimen, as it collided sharply with the back of her skull.

She rounded on Scarab with a snort. “What was  _ that  _ for?”

“She wants to train with you, in case you forgot,” he drawled, rolling his eyes and pointing at her with a third twig. “And while I’m not always the best at listening, I think that generally means you  _ go with her _ ?”

Peril took a second to process, looking back towards Shai - who was standing a good dozen dragon-lengths away, stifling a laugh with a hand - and then scrambling to her feet with a yelped apology.

Shai waited for Peril to catch up, which didn’t take long, and the two walked in comfortable silence out across the sand.

And kept walking.

And… kept… walking?

“Are we, um, going to stop?” Peril asked, giving Shai a confused look.

“Supposedly!” Shai replied with a happy trill to her voice. 

“Any time soon?” Peril prompted.

Shai puffed out her chest, tilting her chin up to look down at Peril, though the effect was a bit lost with them being the same height. “The first thing any SandWing learns about battle is to be fit enough to get into them. And you’ve got good wings,” she gave them an appreciative glance so fast that Peril decided she must have imagined it, “but you don’t have the same strength in your legs, so your first day of training is…?”

“Walking?” Peril guessed, only whining a little.

“Walking!” Shai confirmed. “I talked it over with Scarab, they’ll rest today and a part of the night and meet us at the next town. We’re both a bit worried Bull’s shoulder hurts worse than he’s letting on, so they’ll take it easy on the flight there.”

Shai seemed more cheerful than usual, and Peril, master of subtlety and nuance that she was, asked, “What’s got you so happy today?”

Shai tensed up almost immediately. Peril did too, pinning her ears back and looking away. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to ki- ruin it,” Peril muttered.

“No, no, you didn’t,” Shai relaxed slightly, and the rest of the tension left her as she continued, “as much as I like my brothers, they’re really stubborn. I’m just glad they agreed to take it easy,  _ and  _ to let me go off with you without being too fussy. I swear, just because I’m a few years younger, they’ll dote on me until I have too many horns to hold my head up.”

Peril nodded. “Old SandWings grow lots of horns, then? SkyWings just kind of get bigger and our scales get duller. Pretty boring.”

“And your fire gets hotter,” Shai replied, “I think you’ve got a pretty good deal. You don’t have inconvenient extra frills like RainWings, or big heavy horns like I will.”

“RainWings don’t seem to mind.”

“If my frill went all droopy and fluttery, I know I’d want to cut it off.” Shai laughed, shaking her head to emphasize her bony crest. “I think that’s why you don’t see RainWings in the desert very often. Or SeaWings. Their longer barbels drag in the sand, it must be like getting your paws coated in dirt that  _ sticks _ . Poor things.”

“What about you, one for swimming?” Peril asked. 

Shai laughed again, and Peril felt all of her warmth coil contentedly around her heart and in her belly, comforting and soft.

“I tried once when I was little, because Scarab was telling Bull he would float because he was round like a melon - he threw one in first to demonstrate, but accidentally chucked it clear across the little stream and split it open, which did not reassure Bull  _ at all _ \- and I wanted to be big and brave and prove I could do things on my own.”

“What happened?”

Shai smiled, mostly from embarrassment. “It was shallower than we all thought and when I threw myself in I only ended up soaked to my armpits and sprained my ankle. Mom wasn’t happy, though I think it was more about the melon. She didn’t mind us getting into trouble so much; that’s just what dragonets do.  _ I  _ was pretty grouchy about the whole thing, though.”

Peril found herself laughing, too. When was the last time she had felt this… open? Free?

“You mentioned your mother before,” Peril hazarded. “What was it like when you were little?”

“Well, she found me in the egg.”

“Really?” 

Shai gave her a sidelong, knowing look. “Thought Scarab was the adopted one?”

Peril nodded, a bit shamefully.

“Don’t worry, everyone does. Bull takes after his father, who I never met - well, I  _ might  _ have, once, but there’s a lot of brown SandWings - and Scarab takes after Mom. No, Mom found me out in the sand one day. It’s a bit of a story, if you want to hear it?”

Peril nodded.

“Our mother used to pray every afternoon, veiled in the heat until dusk, to determine which way she would head to find water by the next dawn. She always found it, too, following the path that she learned of in the last hours of the sun. She was more religious than any of us, and our father, I think, in following the sand.”

Shai trailed off, sidetracked. “Whenever she went out in the sands in the afternoon, she’d be still as stone until sunset, and by the time we woke up after dark she would be buried up to her wings but still lying in the same way she’d started.” Shai tilted her head to the side, eyeing her own talons. “When I had just hatched, I thought she was like the moon; that she sank away every morning after we had fallen asleep, and was lost to us until the sun lifted from her face.”

Shai shook her head, clearing her thoughts, either unaware or not minding the wide-eyed attentiveness Peril was giving her. “The day she found me, she says it was like… like the sand told her to open her eyes, and she did even though the sun was still up, and she saw a single bird, a vulture, circling ahead of where she and my brothers were resting. She felt like she had to follow it, so she did. She walked right up underneath where the bird was flying, and when it flew away, she carefully dug into the sand and found my egg, as warm as the desert itself and close to hatching. So she took me back to the little camp, and my brothers were too young to realize that most eggs didn’t come the desert, so they didn’t ever consider me to  _ not  _ be their sibling, and I never knew a time without them.

“She named me Shai, after destiny. Some dragon had given their egg up for the sand to protect, and the sand guided a protector to it who wanted a daughter. She always told me, whenever I was worried about her not being related to me, she said,” Shai’s voice turned soft, as if she was imitating a dragon she was on the verge of forgetting. “If I was not meant to be your mother, than you would not have been given to me as my daughter.”

“I hope I can meet her one day,” Peril replied, voice equally soft. “She sounds like an incredible dragon.”

“I hope you can meet her too,” Shai answered, giving Peril a very small and very genuine smile.

Peril felt like something inside of her had broken open and sewed itself back together all at once. Patron of whispers and subterfuge, renowned for her mysterious cunning, Peril blurted out, “you make me feel warm inside.”

Shai’s cheeks darkened so furiously that Peril thought she was going to bruise. “Oh?” The brown dragon managed to reply.

“Not in a bad way! Not in a burning way.” Peril reassured her, bouncing the tip of her tail on the sand. She had stopped walking, she realized, as though her body had made the decision that she needed to put all of her energy into this without consulting her brain. “But when you talk about your family, it - it’s like all of a sudden I want one, too. Like seeing you happy means I can be happy.”

Shai was a very interesting blend of bewildered, and… well, no, pretty much all bewildered. 

Peril pushed on. Unsteady footing could go burn, she was  _ Peril,  _ and she had faith in finding a clawhold wherever she could put her paws.

“When I was little, the - uh - the SkyWing - I’m so sorry this sounds like such a weird thing now - the breeding program wasn’t open to me, and I didn’t have much chance to meet other dragons. I never really thought about having a future? But now  _ you’re  _ here, and  _ I’m  _ here, and hearing you talk about all these things makes me finally realize that maybe I do want that kind of a future too, and I want to do it with you?”

Shai was giving her such a wide-eyed look that, if she unclamped her jaws, her mouth would probably be full of sand.

Something was building in Peril’s chest that she couldn’t quite put a name to. “I don’t know how we could do it with my firescales, but maybe we could be… neighbors?” She finished lamely. She scrunched up her snout.  _ Definitely NOT what I was going for. _

Luckily, Shai seemed to be somewhere between crying and laughing, and so was just kind of gaping at her. Peril’s equally confused look seemed to bring her back to her senses.

“You,” Shai started, breaking off to cough in a way that ended suspiciously like a giggle, “you know Scarab’s gay, right?”

“I didn’t want to date HIM!” Peril protested, nearly screeching.

Shai couldn’t help bursting out laughing at that point, sitting down and waving a hand at Peril to signal that she needed a second. Between gasps, she choked out, “If there is one thing that is very obvious here -  _ hhhhhhhhhhohbythesand  _ \- it is that you very much do not want to date Scarab. I promise.”

“His eye makeup freaks me out,” Peril admitted with a bit of a laugh herself. 

Shai waved away another laughing fit, getting as close to serious as she could, and looked Peril in the eyes. Only the faintest smile graced her muzzle, splitting into the most beautiful, dazzling smile Peril had ever seen. 

“Peril,” Shai began, still smiling.

Peril realized this was the first time Shai had ever used her name. It felt unexpectedly important.

Shai hesitated a moment, and her muscles twitched like she had just crouched down to judge a leap. 

“You… realize you can like girls, right?”


	13. Chapter 10

Peril, coincidentally, had not realized this at all.


	14. (The Rest Of) Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for breakdowns, flashbacks, character death, drowning

Shai accurately read Peril’s stunned expression. “I’ll take that as a no, then?”

“The Queen - Ruby - she had a wife,” Peril stammered out, “but I didn’t know ANYONE could! How can having a - a  _ wife  _ \- be something ordinary dragons get? They’re so special!”

Peril thought she must have been radiating heat with how…  _ intense  _ she was feeling, but Shai didn’t seem to be bothered or alarmed. In fact, she seemed on the brink of snuggling up to Peril, but was wary of being either burned or pushed away.

“Drakkes get wives all the time!” Shai protested with a laugh. 

“I didn’t know  _ I  _ could!” Peril shouted, mostly because she felt like this was something that needed to be shouted. Perhaps loud enough so that the entire world could hear her. “I didn’t know I could have a wife! I can have a WIFE!”

The word didn’t answer her back. They didn’t really need to, because Shai was answering for them, laughing and occasionally managing to snort out that yes, Peril  _ could  _ have a wife, keep shouting it, you’re adorable, I wish I was that excited when I figured it out -

Peril snapped her mouth shut and spun around to face Shai - when had she gone running off? There were quite a few skid marks in the sand that she must have been jumping - who clammed up just as quickly.

“You like girls too?” Peril asked, bounding over. On a whim - she felt light enough to have WHIMS! - she touched her foreclaw to Shai’s arm. Nothing. Nothing!

Peril grinned up at Shai, who was holding back a laugh as Peril picked up and dropped her hand, over and over. She could touch Shai!

She wasn’t a monster!

How could she be? A monster couldn’t be filled with this much joy, and this much love, and this much hope!

...Had she been a monster because she  _ didn’t  _ have those before?

Softly, quietly, she realized that something inside her memory was burning. It wasn’t…  _ hurting _ , but it felt like it should. Like the way fire ghosted along her scales and every last atom of her was tensed for the agony that never came. It felt, without warning,, like her piece of the sun had been slammed across her nose and into her skull.  _ By a metal spear, _ she thought, both herself and not herself, standing - no, backing away from Shai - and lying prone in a puddle that was small enough that she could only just fit her hand into, but it felt like the sea.

It felt like a river, and like broken wings and a broken heart and a broken neck.

Peril’s fire broke free, all at once, and she was so grateful that not-her had stepped back because the sand around her had been whipped into a spiral of ash and glass by the sheer force of it; she didn’t think she could ever get that hot. She hadn’t ever wanted to.

“Talk it out, Peril,” Shai’s voice,  _ her  _ name. She was Peril. She could find steady ground in this.

“I lied to you, Shai.” She yelled, or at least she meant to; her voice came out blistering hot and raw in her throat. “I think I lied to myself. I didn’t have some fancy palace job. I was a monster. I was a murderer!”

Shai’s voice, again, a cool, welcoming rain that turned her fear to something as weak and fluttering as steam. “Peril, look at me. Please? I need to see your face?”

Peril turned to face her Shai met her gaze, unflinching; a rock; a foothold; a way out.

 

~~~~~

 

Peril turned to face Shai, and it took everything she had to not look away. Shai hadn’t ever known firescales could be like  _ this  _ \- like Peril had swallowed a star. She knew why the dragon in the legends feared her power; why her children fled, why the first SkyWing had broken the path to the death of her talent. 

Every scale on Peril’s body was white-hot, glowing, radiating; it was the height of the day, and yet everything but her seemed as dark as night. Afterimages, blue and red and green, flickered across her eyes as she struggled to focus, casting a dozen, two dozen, three dozen silhouettes of her worst nightmare around her vision.

“Peril,” Shai whispered, and knew that Peril could hear her, “I knew.”

 

~~~~~

 

The fire went out.

Peril fell to her knees, and then her belly. Ash swirled around her claws. “You knew?”

Shai took a few cautious steps towards her, pausing on the edge of the ruined circle before striding over to Peril’s side without a single breath of hesitation. Shai lay down in front of her, taking Peril’s claws in her own and spreading her wings over her head to shade them both.

“Of course I did. Merchants were told to avoid the Sky Queendom for a long time. Of course I had to ask why we did at some point. And the letter you wanted me to read mentioned it."

Peril gave a little whine.

“But,” Shai continued, holding her hands a little tighter, “I also heard that you escaped, and when I got news next you were helping to build a  _ school.  _ That’s not something bad dragons do - at least, they wouldn’t be doing it that way. And then you risk your own hide coming back to Ikketil to tell the Queen her daughter’s been hurt, because you can fly the fastest?”

Peril gave her a bit of a look, and Shai glanced away. 

“The gossip in that city is terrible,” Shai admitted. “I think everyone knew that you were there, and why you were there, by the time you went to bed.”

“Nobody attacked me.” Peril mumbled.

“I don’t think many dragons would have. You weren’t the only soldier born into this war. Anyone can kill with teeth, claws, metal, some with fire, some with ice.” Shai’s voice grew softer. “Any dragonet can kill another when they aren’t taught to be safe.”

“I think I  _ was _ safe when I was a dragonet,” Peril said, slowly lifting her head up to press her cheek against Shai’s neck. Shai’s only movement was to tilt her chin down, pulling Peril closer. “When I hatched, I had a brother. And firescales are always there, even in the egg, but he was okay. I think my mother used to be able to pick me up, and I could wrestle with my brother, and things were okay, even if he didn’t have any fire. I wasn’t always a monster.”

Shai crooned, soft and sure.

_ Wind and water and fire and steel, _

“My mother was trying to run away with us, to keep us safe, and she was carrying us both because we couldn’t fly yet. But we slowed her down, and the Queen - Scarlet - caught up.” The words echoed out of her like they’d been rotting at the bottom of a well, where the water had run out with her mother’s luck. “She said we could leave, but my mother had to kill one of us.”

Shai was quiet.

“She killed him in front of me,” Peril whispered, her eyes open, staring into Shai’s scales.  _ Face it. Don’t close your eyes this time. _ “And when she picked me up, I burned her. And I haven’t stopped burning. I couldn’t.”

“You’re not burning now,” Shai said, her voice rich and warm and rumbling against Peril’s bones. _.  _ “I can be your bodyguard against that.”

Peril let out a small laugh that might have been a sob, or might have been the other way around.

“Sometimes,” Shai continued, “something happens and it’s so terrible and you’re so angry that you just want to bite it, sink your teeth so far in that it never forgets how much it hurt you. But it dies, and you don’t, and you’re just swallowing carrion until you realize that biting it is only hurting you. Sometimes the rot is so bad you just have to let go.”

“Is that another SandWing saying?” Peril joked weakly.

“It’s one of mine, actually,” Shai replied, only giving her voice a hint of pride. “Scarab calls me ‘distressingly poetic’.”

Her imitation of his voice brought a small laugh from Peril, which devolved into a snuffling, giggling, sobbing mess. “H-he’s one to talk,” she managed to get out. 

“I know, right?” Shai answered, and whether or not she was forcing the brightness into her voice, Peril didn’t really know, or care. All that mattered was that Shai was gently butting her head against Peril’s shoulder, trying to get her to stand up, and when she got to her feet the sky was wide and bright and beautiful.

“Would this be a bad time to ask you out?” Peril asked feebly, wiping her eyes and nose and then sneezing as she inhaled a paw’s worth of dust.

Shai laughed, though it was far from mean. “Let’s get you a bath first, and then maybe I’ll consider it. And before you ask,” Shai glanced over and Peril shut her mouth, “ we can fly.”

“I just want to rest for a while,” Peril muttered. “And just… remember.”

“Then let’s find some shade, first,” Shai replied encouragingly, leading Peril further into the desert.

 

~~~~~

 

Peril crouched behind a rock, her ears pricked as she pushed herself as far into the darkness as she could fit. She took a step back, and trod on her brother’s tail; he let out a squawk of pain, and then snapped his mouth shut, staring at her through eyes white with terror.

Peril glared at him for a moment, her short snout wrinkled with a frown, before taking a cautious look out around the rock.

It wasn’t Mama, she knew that. This dragon was more orange than red, and sturdy where Mama was thin. This dragon looked like they had been eating well for  _ months, _ which made Peril nearly growl with anger when they casually tore open one of the baskets Mama had made down by the river and started to gorge themselves on the dried fish strips inside.  _ Those were supposed to last all winter! _

But Peril knew better than to challenge the stranger, even though she had reached her first birthday and was now a match for ANYTHING. Mama had told them how important it was that they remained hidden, and anyone Mama wanted to be in the cave would have Mama with them.

This dragon could be dangerous just by running away, if they saw Peril. She didn’t understand why; just that she had to stay hidden, if she wanted to keep her family safe. 

She swallowed her anger and looked over her shoulder at her brother; he was much smaller than she was, and while Peril could fight her own battles, Ember had problems fighting a stiff breeze. They might be the same age, but there was no doubt that Peril was the big sister, and she had to protect him.

“It’s a stranger,” she whispered to him, keeping on ear turned towards the stranger. They didn’t seem to care that they were making so much noise - but they didn’t know there were two dragonets at home. They just knew that Mama was in the capital. “We’ll have to squeeze into the tunnel.”

Ember nodded, his faith always completely placed in her. He twisted over his own tail and pressed up against the wall, his shoulder finding the tiny gap between two stones and letting the rest of him follow through. Ember’s tail vanished into the stone, and for a moment, Peril thought about bolting into the open and attacking the stranger who was eating all of their food without even ASKING. But… she couldn’t leave Ember in the tunnel on his own! He was scared of the dark.

And Mama  _ had  _ said that killing defenseless dragons was bad, and every dragon was defenseless in comparison to Peril, her little firebrand. So Peril would have to be the big sister, and not the big champion.

She shouldered her way into the narrow tunnel, finding it a much tighter fit than Ember did. For a second, she was stuck - she took a chance on the stranger dismissing the noise and kicked out loudly across the stone, squeezing herself in.

She popped out in a little cavern, completely dark, and landed with a squeak on her chest. She could sense Ember waiting against the other wall for her, his breath rapid and his body trembling. She struck out towards him, clumsily pawing at his sides and face until she managed to guide him to her side and wrap him up in her warm wing. 

“They can’t get us here,” Peril whispered to him reassuringly. “Once they’re gone and we can’t hear them any more, I’ll light the little fire, and then we can wait for Mama, okay? If anyone tries to hurt you, I’ll burn them in the face!”

She flexed her claws out in front of her, but it didn’t seem as threatening when she couldn’t see them. Ember pressed his cool scales against her side anyway, warbling softly. He barely ever spoke, but Peril didn’t mind. They were TWINS, after all, and how cool was THAT? She’d  _ always  _ know what he was thinking, and sometimes what he was feeling, which Mama said was impossible but Peril just KNEW.

And right now, Peril knew he was very, very scared, and very, very grateful that she was here.

“Me too, Ember,” she whispered, nuzzling his little head. “Me too.”

 

~~~~~

 

Peril’s breath caught in her throat as her brother’s face slipped under the water. 

“Mama!” Peril shrieked, bolting down to the bank, “Mama, Ember fell in!”

_ He was supposed to make the jump to the next stone!  _ She thought desperately, scanning the water with wide, bright blue eyes.  _ I moved it close enough for him and everything! _

Mama jumped over her, swift and sure, and plunged into the water with a huge splash. Peril had only seen Mama swim a few times, but now the red drakka was churning the water with her huge claws as if she’d been born in it, whirling in the water with a gaze just as desperate as Peril’s.

Something crawled out of the water downstream. Peril gasped. It was a stranger, and they were green and HUGE, like the hill their cave was in, though the look on the dragon’s face made her never want to try climbing  _ them _ . Ember was in their mouth, looking tinier and paler than ever against the stranger’s emerald scales.

“Don’t eat him!” Peril screamed, leaping to her feet and charging towards the stranger. She felt fire spreading into her claws as she neared the stranger, their amusement at seeing her battle charge turning to fear as the ground charred under her feet.

“PERIL!” Mama barked behind her.

Peril tried to stop, stumbled, and felt the flame leave her scales as she faceplanted in the muddy riverbank. She tried to look dignified as she scrambled to her feet, but she didn’t  _ really  _ care, not when she could feel Ember fading. 

Mama strode out of the river, stepped over Peril, and loomed over the stranger as they lay Ember’s body down on the grass. Peril expected her to slash her big claws across the other dragon’s face, but she just sat down and watched. 

Peril stormed up to sit beside Mama, glaring at the green dragon as he nosed Ember’s body. He rolled the little dragonet over, and then pressed on his back with a single claw; Ember sputtered, water spraying from his mouth and nose as he coughed, and the green dragon stepped back to let Peril go over and comfort him.

Peril wrapped Ember up - he was trembling SO BADLY - and made herself as warm as she could without hurting him.

“So, that’s why you’ve been hiding out here in the middle of nowhere?” The green dragon rumbled. Something flashed along their neck - gills! Now that the panic was over, Peril noticed their rounded snout, their stocky body, the weird dangly things under their chin. Ooh, their claws were webbed! They must be a SeaWing! Peril hadn’t met any before, and she was intrigued. Were all other dragons so weird?

“Thank you for saving him, Webs. I owe you a debt.” Mama’s voice was calm, but her tail was flicking on the ground, the same way Peril’s did when she was really upset but didn’t want it to be obvious.

“A debt? Come back to the Talons,” the green dragon replied. “They’ve had me running messages all over the kingdom, and it’s much easier by air than by water.”

“I can’t put my children in danger. They’re…”

“The girl has too much fire, the boy has too little. Yes, it’s rather obvious.”

“Webs, I trust you, but I can’t trust the others. You have to understand, this is what’s best. I can still pass messages along to the dragon under the mountain if I have to.”

Webs shook his head, scattering water. “Dune would help you protect them. He - he and I have our own secrets. We could move your children somewhere safe.”

“They’re safe with me,” Mama protested. “They’ll be safe until they can live on their own, and they can live somewhere no other SkyWings do.”

“The Queen knows an egg is missing, Kestrel,” he protested. “The only thing keeping her from your doorstep is the time it takes to search the records and see who bred and who hatched. They’re, what, two years old now? How much longer do you think you can sneak through the black market once she puts a bounty on your head?”

“Get one of the Talons to disguise me. What about that Princess? Isn’t she an animus?”

“Orca is mere weeks from challenging the Queen. I’m not going to distract her from that battle for  _ anything _ , especially when it means the whole territory may be made open to the Talons under her rule.” Webs shook his head. “You’ll only be safe where the Talons have hideouts. The Queen knows everywhere else. Kestrel, please, you know this.”

“I will not carry my dragonets halfway across the continent just to  _ keep hiding _ ,” Mama snarled. 

“You  _ can’t  _ carry them,” Webs challenged, his gills flaring. “Flying that fast and that high would kill the runt. If you want to save your daughter, you’ll have to sacrifice your son. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better.”

He turned his back to her, flipping his tail dismissively, and plunged back into the river. Mama watched him go. 

“Ember’s cold,” Peril said, after a while. “I think we should go back inside.”

Mama looked at them both, looking so sad that Peril felt it from the tip of her beak to the very last scale on her tail.

“Yes,” she replied, her voice distant. “Let’s get you both home.”

 

~~~~~

 

One month later, Peril saw her brother for the last time. For the next seven years, all she felt was the forgotten echo of his mind against hers, and her body was filled with his stolen fire.

Her heart still prodded the hole he had left, seeking out something she’d eventually forgotten she was missing. There was no longer a battle, only a wound, and then it had been so long that it stopped being a wound and just ended up being Peril.

 

~~~~~

 

And soaring over the desert at Shai’s wingtip, dusk falling around them and the glimmering lights of their destination dancing across the sand in the distance, Peril was healing.


	15. Chapter 11

Shai guided Peril down around the outskirts of the little city - that was its name too, Alili,  _ little city  _ \- to a landing spot on the shore of a small, obviously dragon-made pool. A large tarp, made of a material Peril didn’t recognize, cast the pool in shade to prevent it from evaporating too quickly, and occasionally the scampering of some unseen animal across the top of it sent a shower of condensation back to the darkened surface. It wasn’t small, either; Peril guessed it could comfortably fit two or three dragons, though it was only deep enough to reach her belly.

Shai chose a spot to lie down on the side, letting out a heavy sigh as she rolled out her shoulders and dropped her wings. Peril gave the water a concerned frown - water and Peril did not often mix well -  but she couldn’t exactly ignore how much she needed a bath, and she  _ was  _ feeling much less simmer-y.

Peril decided rapidly that she had much preferred  _ not _ being able to feel water dripping down her scales. It was like being covered in slime, like fish, and the water was uncomfortably warm.  The bottom of the pool was also just uncomfortable, period - it felt like it was tiled in a bunch of tiny bumps that dug into her heels. Peril gave Shai a disappointed look over her shoulder.

“Told you to walk on more sand,” Shai chirped teasingly from behind her. “Those little bumps are a  _ blessing  _ if you’ve been on your feet all day.”

“This isn’t a proper SkyWing bath,” Peril groused, lying down in the water and trying to rub her scales against the stone. “The least you could do is use  _ gravel _ .”

“Unfortunately, they used all of that to make the bumps. You’ll have to suffer.” Shai caught the baleful look Peril was giving her. “Oh, at least rinse! Get the smell off of you.”

Peril slouched into the water, begrudgingly scrubbing grit out of her scales. “Shouldn’t you have to get in here too?”

The corner of her mouth quirked up into a smile. “I’m offended that you can even conceive of me being anything but perfect every day.”

Peril picked a particularly stubborn crust of dirt out from under her wing. “Was that flirting?”

“Completely self-absorbed vanity, actually,” Shai clarified, “but if it works on you, I certainly wouldn’t mind using it. No, I’ll bathe tonight, I don’t like being wet when the sun’s still out. Makes me feel like I’m boiling.”

Peril made a small questioning-supportive noise as she focused on cleaning.

Shai went quiet and very still. “Peril,” she muttered, “don’t look now, but there’s a NightWing staring at us.”

Peril looked up instantly, spotting the dragon in one of the arches of the city wall for the split second before they ducked out of sight. 

Shai laughed a low, breathy chuckle. “Does ‘don’t look’  _ ever  _ work?”

“Do you think they’re a friend of the one that attacked us?” Peril asked, still craning her head towards the arch in case the dragon reappeared.

“Might be here to… pick up the body,” Shai considered, also still watching. “If they lived nearby, which they probably did. Could be another merchant, doing a wide run; I heard a few NightWings were trying to revive glassblowing, they’d probably have to come out here to do it, rainforest is a bit of a fire hazard. Might be a tourist.”

“But?” Peril prompted. 

“But Alili is out of the way for a regular trade route, there aren’t really any glassmakers in the smaller towns, and as far as I know the only thing Alili has going for it is that it’s quiet.”

“How do you know everything about everywhere?”

Shai considered for a moment before accepting the change in topic. “Eight - no, my hatchday passed in the SkyWing capital - nine years traveling through the desert on the trading routes. You have to remember where the permanent cities are and what they’re like, especially if you’re carrying expensive goods.” Shai nodded towards the stout stone walls outside of the city. “Alili’s small because it stays within the arches, means they can barricade easily when a storm blows in. It would be an awful spot otherwise, all the ground is good for here is tents.”

“Trading, traveling,  _ and  _ architecture.” Peril observed, trying to count out her own age in her head. Scarlet had taken her when she was two, and then she’d met Clay six years later, and then the year before the school opened… she wasn’t sure when her birthday was, exactly, but she was pretty sure she would be nine by now too.

“Those three topics are very closely linked,” Shai protested, “and you’ve got me going on about myself again. What are some  _ Peril  _ things?”

“I like the stars,” Peril answered honestly. “I studied them while I was at the school, even if it wasn’t for very long. I know where they all are, and how they all connect.”

“Astronomy!” Shai chirped. “What’s your favourite constellation?”

Peril knew the layout of the constellation instantly; a wide M shape with a line down the middle, like a dragon’s wings. “I’m not sure what it’s called. Here, I’ll trace it.”

Shai sat up to let Peril step out of the water beside her, trying to avoid being dripped on as Peril marked out the stars in the sand.

Shai watched with interest, and then held back a laugh as Peril connected them. “I suppose I should have guessed you’d choose that one. It’s the Sky Wings!”

Peril looked down at it, and found a laugh bubbling up inside of her as well. She gestured at her drawing with a claw. “I guess that makes this the Sand Wings, then?”

Shai didn’t answer with words, just stretched out to bump her head against Peril’s neck and growled a purr. 

“That was the cheesiest thing I have ever heard you say, and you were bouncing around yelling about how great having a wife was. Has anyone ever told you that you’re adorable?”

Peril tilted her head, considering. “I’m… not sure.”

Shai pressed against her a little harder. “Then I’ll say it a thousand times to make up for it.”

“That’s…”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘gay’.”

“That’s gay.” Peril felt her heart flutter.

They sat for a while, content in the quiet, before a movement over by the city drew Peril’s attention away. The big NightWing was back, and staring towards them again. And beside them, to Peril’s surprise, was the NightWing she had killed. 

Peril hastily ducked her head down, causing Shai to draw away and look towards the NightWings as well. She bared her teeth in a soundless snarl at the distant black dragons.

“You told me they were dead!” Peril whispered, glancing between the two dragons. 

“That’s what Scarab told  _ me, _ ” Shai rumbled back. “Maybe they were just bad enough off that he thought they wouldn’t make it?”

“Looks to me like they did.”

Shai gave her a sidelong glare, but it was tempered by the hurt in her eyes. “He can be an ass, but he wouldn’t have told you they were dead unless he was sure they were going to be.”

“Then how are they walking around?!” Peril protested.

Shai shook her head, and then her ears pricked and she turned. Peril followed her gaze, spotting the third NightWing flying in across the sand. 

“Three of them?” Peril growled.

Shai flicked her ear, her eyes narrowed. “There’s an IceWing with this one, but they’re hard to see against the sky. I don’t think they’re with the other two.”

Peril squinted up towards the distant NightWing, trying to seek out the fourth dragon. Shai was describing their location, but the two flying dragons were nearly overhead before Peril was able to seperate the IceWing from the pale sky.

“I know that dragon,” Peril breathed. “The IceWing. He’s one of the students from Jade Mountain Academy.”

“Out here?” Shai questioned.

“Some of the dragonets in his group were injured. Maybe he went to go get the NightWing’s mother?” Peril tilted her head, trying to puzzle it out. “I don’t know why an IceWing would go, though.”

“From how they’re circling, I don’t think either of them meant to come here,” Shai observed. “Must have gotten a landmark wrong on the way here. Possibility is nearby, off to the north. Do you think that’s where they’re headed?”

Peril shrugged, but watched the two dragons hovering in the air for a while; they seemed to be arguing about whether to stop. Eventually, the IceWing flew off on his own, heading north as Shai had predicted, and after a few moments the NightWing followed.

“I hope nothing else has gone wrong back there,” Peril muttered. “I was supposed to be back by now.”

“We’ll try to hurry to the capital,” Shai promised. “Then you can do what you came here for and head back.”

“I doubt it will be that easy,” Peril replied with a weak laugh. 

“I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“And when it’s done? What will you do then?”

Shai didn’t meet Peril’s eyes. “We’ll have to figure that out when we get there.”

Peril turned away, looking back towards the city, and felt her heart go cold with dread. “Shai? The NightWings are gone.”

\-----

Shai and Peril were still sitting out by the pool, basking in the last rays of the setting sun, when Scarab and Bull had come coasting across the sand and landed beside them. Shai immediately got to arguing with Scarab about how they were supposed to rest longer, while Peril walked Bull over to the little pool. He lumbered into the water, looking more MudWing than SandWing, and didn’t do any more than nod when Peril offered to help him change the bandages on his shoulder.

Working with what little knowledge Peril had of cleaning fabric, she repeatedly soaked it and wrung it out, occasionally casting concerned looks at Bull in case he was watching her. He was focused on cleaning his wound; while it wasn’t bleeding, there was still sand in the wound that had slipped between the tight winding of the bandage, and even Peril knew that leaving that kind of grit alone wouldn’t help his healing.

It was a rather large gash, too, she realized as he worked on it. It almost looked like the kind of injury that could leave a dragon flightless, but he didn’t seem bothered.

“Bull,” Peril asked slowly, “have you ever known a dragon to survive a broken neck?”

He made three slow sweeps over his shoulder, making sure water ran into the crevices where sand had gathered. “No,” he answered slowly, “but I have only seen that injury in battles that must end in death.”

“So if it weren’t a battle, there’s a chance?”

Bull slowly shook his head. “It’s… unlikely. It would be very easy to be paralyzed from such an injury, everywhere below the break.”

Peril washed in silence. 

“Was it someone you knew?” He asked after another pause.

“...My brother,” Peril admitted. “Before we’d fledged.”

Bull didn’t reply, for so long that Peril looked up, worried she’d said something insulting. Bull was sitting perfectly still in the water, and his warm eyes met hers. “The only thing I have learned from war,” he said, “was that a dragon is not dead until you find their grave.”

“Your mother,” Peril said, without thinking.

He nodded. “And our father, and friends who went to battle that we haven’t heard from since. Enemies who have done the same. Merchants who move to other towns, dragons who live in one place that  _ we  _ have to leave behind when we travel. Some of them may be dead, now, and some are more likely to have found that fate than others. But for most, it is more likely that we were simply a chapter in their lives, and there are many chapters in a story that will span a lifetime.”

“I don’t think I can be that optimistic about what happened to him,” Peril said, looking down at her claws. 

“Then his spirit will be the wind under your wings for as long as you live,” Bull answered calmly. “That is the SkyWing way.”

The two dragons washed in silence for a while longer.

“Thank you,” Peril muttered. 

Bull rumbled an affirming reply.

“I think this is as clean as I’ll get it,” she continued, holding up the strip of cloth. “How about you?”

He inspected the wound, and then rolled his wings in a shrug. “The same.”

Peril waded over to him, beginning to tie the bandage back on. She had gotten it three times around before she realized she hadn’t mentioned her…  _ explosive  _ revelation with Shai, but Bull hadn’t flinched when she had gone to his side.

“My firescales, I-”

“I could tell as soon as you got in the water,” he rumbled, “and I trust you.”

Peril resumed her tying, feeling almost giddy. “Shai helped.”

“And Shai should have been helping her brother, too,” Shai said from behind Peril, wading in. “I hope I’m not interrupting a touching bonding moment?”

“I think it’s mostly done,” Bull muttered, yawning. “Did you argue Scarab out of his scales?”

“I argued him back into his common sense, and don’t think I won’t do it to you too after you’ve rested.”

“You’re the youngest parent I’ve ever had!” Scarab shouted from behind her.

“You’re the oldest hatchling I’ve ever had to deal with!” Shai shouted back, grinning.

As Scarab gave an indignant squawk behind her, Shai nodded towards the city. “ _ I’m  _ sure as the sun not doing any more flying tonight. Ready to try and find someone selling a bed?”

Bull  _ hmm _ ed in agreement and stepped out of the pool, giving Scarab a comforting pat on the back with a wing as he went past. Scarab accepted it with a grumble and joined him as he continued walking down to the walls. 

Shai gave herself a quick roll in the water, shaking herself out as soon as she’d gotten her claws back on the tiled rim. Peril walked alongside her, casting worried glances towards the arch the NightWings had been sitting under as they neared it. 

“My brother and I are known here,” Shai reassured her under her breath. “They’d have to be idiots to try something within the city limits.”

Peril pressed closer to Shai anyway, and hesitantly spread a wing over the drakka’s back.

And then they stepped under the arch, and Peril saw Alili from the ground for the first time.

It was much different from the SkyWing city; there were no wide paths, or houses with open doors, or nothing but sky above. The streets were narrow, and wove wildly between the colorful, billowing tents, like a river around stones. Despite the setting sun, or perhaps because of it, there were dozens of dragons crammed in the narrow spaces, either leaning out of tents propped open and shouting about their goods, or shoppers with bags hanging neatly over their chests. Peril ducked under a rope of glass bulbs, each burning a slow oil and lighting the bustling town underfoot. Confused, Peril looked up - and instead of the twilight sky arching high overhead, a series of mismatched sheets and tarps were blocking out the outside light.

“It’s to keep the sand out,” Shai answered, following her gaze. “There’s a big canvas that gets put up when it storms, but it’s not the season for it.”

Peril nodded, still entranced by this new world so unlike her own. As Shai led her further in, the crowds lessened; the outermost tents of the regular merchants slowly being replaced by those with more expensive goods and who stayed longer, and then them too giving way to the families who chose to spend their lives here, and a few plots of land that were carefully tended into gardens to provide vegetables and fruits to the dragons with the time to cultivate them.

Or so Shai was telling her; Peril was much too caught up in the differences between SkyWings and SandWings to have noticed those things herself.

Shai guided her to the front of a large group of tents; each a different color or pattern, and staked out with a ring of brightly-colored silks that were adorned with little metal plates that chimed together when an errant gust swooped in through the fabric ceilings.

Scarab and Bull were already within the fence line, and Scarab was talking to a portly old SandWing the color of dust, who was alternating between frowning, arguing prices, and cleaning sand out of the scales of Scarab’s face like a doddering old grandparent.

“She’s our great-grandmother,” Shai muttered to Peril as they neared. Peril nodded.

The old SandWing gave Shai a friendly grin as she approached, and the two drakka touched their noses to each other’s crests.

“It’s been so long since you came to visit! I almost thought you’d forgotten me, out here in the middle of nowhere. And then you visit and your brother cannot offer a good enough price to spend the night!”

Scarab frowned, screwing up his muzzle.

“We would never forget you, ida.” Shai answered her. “And Scarab is always a penny pincher. He gets it from you, you know.”

The gray SandWing laughed, and out of her sight behind her, Scarab mimed being stabbed in the heart. Bull gave him a comforting pat.

“Oh, you know I always let you three stay for free. It’s so rarely that you stop by! Oh, and who is  _ this _ lovely young dragon?”

“We stop by every time we’re on a sale run, ida. This is Peril, she’s traveling with us because of the attacks.”

The gray SandWing gave Peril a once-over. “She seems like a very nice young lady. Perhaps you’ve finally found yourself a sweetheart who can deal with your shenanigans!”

“I can handle worse than that, I think,” Peril replied, at the same time that Shai yelped, “we’re not quite sweethearts yet, ida!”

“Ah, to be young again,” the old SandWing sighed wistfully, “and to hide the obvious from yourselves. Come on, breakfast is still warm, have a bite before you head to bed.”

“That would be great, ida,” Shai stammered, trying to hide her blush. “How about you go ahead with Bull and Scarab and they can pick out some tents on the way?”

Her tone was so innocent and sweet that Scarab instantly rolled back on his feet, leaving his pantomimed death throes half-finished. He gave her a  _ you’re-sacrificing-your-own-brother?  _ stare over the old SandWing’s back as she guided the brothers away into the sea of tents, and waited until they were out of sight to yell, “ida, you won’t  _ believe  _ those two lovebirds!”

Shai shook her head, giving Peril an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you. Dusty is a lot to handle.”

“She’s wonderful.” Peril replied, smiling. “You should have told me you had family here!”

“It… did completely slip my mind this time, with everything else going on,” Shai admitted. 

Peril gave her a smug grin. “She thinks I’m  _ lovely _ .”

Shai rolled her eyes, nodding for Peril to walk with her as she followed her brothers. “I think you’re lovely too, and don’t forget it.”

Scarab stuck his head out from a tent to their left, grinning. “So you admit it!”

“Bone for brains!” Shai yelped, swatting him on the shoulder. “If Dusty is in there with you, I swear-”

Scarab dropped to the ground and rolled on to his back, staring up at Shai. “You’ve bested me. She’s getting food with Bull. But I’ll tell her!”

“I’ll tell her about that nice young man you were staring at in that SkyWing bar,” Shai threatened.

“Oh, don’t give her another  _ crush  _ to work with,” Scarab whined. “I thought you loved me.”

Shai tapped a finger to her cheek, thinking. “What did he say his name was? Hark? Squawk?”

“Hawk?” Peril suggested, recalling Cardinal’s ex-boyfriend. “He’s into drakkes.”

“By the three moons, you’ve weaponized your girlfriend against me,” Scarab moaned, “and she’s giving me  _ hopes. _ ”

“I weaponized myself,” Peril argued.

“You knew he was flirting with you, you sack of scales,” Shai replied, giving him a very gentle kick. “Unfortunately, you are already  _ full  _ of hopes.”

“Dusty will practically arrange our marriage if you tell her. I’d cry. Do you want to see a grown dragon cry?”

“Quit moaning, I won’t tell her. Promise.” Shai rolled her eyes. “Are we all sleeping in there with you, or…?”

“Good promise. I already told her you two were exchanging long, wistful looks over the campfire and couldn’t bear to be apart.” Scarab sat up before Shai could respond, continuing, “I’m in here with Bull, because he doesn’t wake up when I kick him, and you and your  _ sweetheart  _ are in that red tent over there, with the extra sheets on it to muffle you reading your tender, honey-sweet love poems to each other throughout the night.”

Peril couldn’t help but laugh, and Shai couldn’t keep a straight face once Peril had broken hers. 

“Stop encouraging him!” Shai pleaded between snorts.

Scarab grinned. “Really, though, that is your tent. I told Dusty you two had a harder day of travel than we did, and you’d need the extra quiet. Go settle in, I’ll get Dusty to deliver it. With a bow!”

Shai shoved him back into the tent, laughing, and led Peril away to the red tent. Peril felt instantly comforted once she stepped into the shadowy doorway, reminded of the thick, sturdy walls of the SkyWing capital, and the cloth floor and multiple pillows were a welcome respite from sandy streets. She gratefully collapsed, shifting aside to make room for Shai as she pulled the opening flaps closed.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the energy for any love poems tonight,” Shai admitted, stretching out her back before picking a spot to lie down next to Peril. “That alright?”

“Mmhm,” Peril replied through a pillow. “Didn’t get my question tonight.”

“I’ll tell you a story, then,” Shai replied, yawning. “Once there was a SandWing who had a crush on a very cute SkyWing, and hoped that the SkyWing might not mind the relationship going a little fast.”

“Was it to get the SandWing’s great-grandmother off of her back?”

“Mmmaybe,” Shai answered, rolling over and touching her tail to Peril’s. “Maybe just because she loved her and wanted her to be happy.”

“Then I don’t think the SkyWing would mind at all.” Peril replied. “She’s been alone long enough.”

In the red-hued darkness, Shai’s hand reached out for Peril’s, and Peril held it with a care she hadn’t been able to manage for seven long years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! many things to cover in these notes!
> 
> 1\. Fanart feature! Here's [Peril realizing she can have a wife](http://fav.me/dc532xj) by [sapphiccats on deviantART](https://sapphiccats.deviantart.com/) (absolutely adorable, thank you) and [Peril back in the early chapters, considering giving Deathbringer the burn treatment for being a creep](http://fav.me/dc5cps2), by [SkaiaGalaxy on deviantART](https://skaiagalaxy.deviantart.com/)! One of Skaia's OCs, Fen, has also featured in Winglets: Student, linked below! (love it)
> 
> 2\. The reason for this being so slow is because I have written two Winglet-esque short fics, [Protector](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13948011) and [Student](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913874), and have also started the third arc rewrite (prewrite?), [The Forgotten Continent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13988517/chapters/32208648), because I have very little faith in where this series is headed. I'm hoping to do a lot of little Winglet stories, so if you are not subscribed to get alerts with those new stories, that may be worth considering.
> 
> 3\. I'm almost at my first thousand watchers on deviantART, and I'll be holding an art raffle to celebrate! So if you haven't checked out [my account there](https://iceofwaterflock.deviantart.com/), now may be a good time to do so!
> 
> 4\. (I promise, this is the last thing!) I'm hosting [The Dragonets Are Coming!](https://wof-fanzine.deviantart.com/), a charity WoF fanzine, and artist applications are currently open! If you're looking to make the fandom a more positive place, or make some real change, consider applying!


	16. Chapter 12

Peril woke alone, the inside of the tent casted in rose by the sunlight through the red fabric. She rolled on to her feet and stretched out her back, lavishing in the sensation of  _ cloth  _ beneath her claws, of the feathery softness of the pillows she’d rested on, of the ghost of Shai’s warmth against her hands.

She felt weak, but the kind of weak that resulted from working too hard; a sagging, contented weight on her limbs that was heady enough to nearly make her lie back down and sleep some more. The strangeness of it was overwhelming; Peril wasn’t sure what she’d  _ done  _ in order to be so deeply exhausted, and her brain was too close to the same state to be offering any suggestions.

A round, grayed muzzle poked in through the tent’s flap. Peril slowly recognized Dusty as the old SandWing paid her no mind, ducking in the rest of the way and drawing a nest of pillows together. Peril watched her, blearily, until Dusty settled herself on her pile and gave Peril a commanding look. 

“I talked to my friend Sky today,” Dusty announced, “and she said she remembered a bit about SkyWings from when she was a whelp, before Scarlet took the throne and turned everything around.”

Peril couldn’t quite focus. “A SkyWing named Sky…?”

Dusty gave her an offended look, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge the interruption. “She says her mother taught her about firescales because she was a herbalist, and you treat firescales differently from regular burns.”

Peril’s brain woke up.

“You’re the Peril from the SkyWing arena, right?” Dusty asked, her voice turning gentle. “The dragonet that Scarlet abused?”

“I… yes.” Peril looked down at her claws, and then back at Dusty with a frown. “Abused?”

“Everyone outside of Scarlet’s earshot knows that’s what it was, unless they were dragonets themselves,” the elderly SandWing confirmed. “It was hard enough fighting in that war as a grown dragon, but to turn a child into a weapon? Scarlet is just lucky she had powerful allies.”

“I never knew,” Peril whispered.

Dusty bobbed her head, her impressive crown of horns tapping against the scales of her neck. “Many hoped that we would be able to save you, and any other horrors that Queen was hiding. But you saved yourself before we got the chance, and what wonderful news that was.”

“Then why was I banished when Ruby took the throne? If everyone knew it wasn’t my fault-”

Dusty jerked her tail up, a gesture that seemed threatening until Peril noticed her barb was still flat against the back of her tail. The drakka just wanted her attention. 

“Queen Ruby didn’t know much about firescales, but she knew you wouldn’t be any better off staying in a city where everyone had been under Scarlet’s claw.” Dusty bobbed her head again, considering. “I think staying in that city would have killed you.”

“An assassination?” Peril asked.

“Your own firescales. I told you I talked to Sky, didn’t I? She’s grouchy, and complains about everyone, but she’s a good sort, and has a mind like a steel trap. When she was little, she learned about firescales the way that your firescales are now; you still have them, like you still have your wings, but you’re not using them.”

Peril found herself leaning forward, tense.

“And just like your wings, your firescales require energy.” Dusty gave her a surprisingly parental once-over. “Most dragons with the ability only use it when a situation is dire, life or death, because it strips your body’s reserves so fast. You don’t fly as fast as most SkyWings, Shai told me that; sweetheart, you look a bit like a twig. A dragon isn’t meant to look so thin.”

Peril glanced down at herself. She’d never really noticed.

Dusty reclaimed her attention. “Scarlet would have known, before she changed the laws. She probably fed you rocks, correct? And large meals?”

“She enjoyed feasts and parties,” Peril admitted, “but I usually just got food sent to my room.”

“And since you left?” Dusty pressed. “How have you been feeling?”

“I - I mean, tired, I suppose, but everyone was feeling tired. I haven’t burned anyone in a long time, but I’ve been trying to avoid them. Are you telling me that my firescales would have starved me?”

“Well,  _ Sky  _ is telling you that, I’m just the messenger. But I’m also the cook, and I set aside enough food to put meat back on your bones.” Dusty sat up, her joints popping. “I can’t bear sitting much longer, so let’s go get you some food.”

Peril stood up to follow her and almost fell back down. Dusty plodded back over, letting Peril lean against her side. 

“Easy, easy,” the drakka murmured, her voice low, “your body has only just accepted that you’re out of danger. It’ll take you a while to feel like yourself again.”

“I don’t know what myself is,” Peril protested softly.

Dusty’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t worry,” she smiled, “Shai does.”

 

\-----

 

The hunted dread in Shai’s eyes over her plate of dumplings and Scarab’s obvious absence from the small table was enough to make Peril want to go back to the tent, starvation be damned. Bull seemed calm, at least, having made a pyramid of small, fried rolls that he had only just begun to actually eat. 

Dusty swept Peril up between the two siblings, fussed over her and piled her tray high with foods Peril didn’t even recognize, and then bundled herself off - presumably to sleep away the day, like an ordinary SandWing.

Shai leaned over as soon as Dusty had left, and began explaining what each of the strange foods was. The dumplings were meat and spices, similar to the ones she’d had in the capital, while the rolls that Bull was eating were ostrich eggs and rice in a thin, doughy wrap fried in butter. There was a pile of small, round fruits with hard yellow shells; Shai put a few aside that were slightly teal in color, telling Peril they weren’t quite ripe, and showed her how to pick the seeds out of the pulp so she wouldn’t get a stomachache. 

Peril was stuffing her face with dumplings, aware now of how intensely hungry she was, when Scarab returned.  _ Arrived  _ might have been a better term for it, with how grandly he seemed to do it. Staring into the contents of one of the more mysterious items Peril had been given, Shai stiffened with the practiced subdued panic of a sister about to regret not disowning herself when she was a dragonet.

“I brought presents!” Scarab chirped happily, dropping down at the table opposite Peril. He nicked a bread roll from Shai’s plate, ignoring Shai’s annoyed growl as he dug through a small bag he’d looped over his shoulder.

Peril’s intrest perked - and Shai’s scowl deepened - at the sound of a surprising number of coins chiming together inside the bag. Bull ate another egg roll, though he seemed faintly irritated as well in doing so.

Peril stopped mid-dumpling, turning to Shai as Scarab swore and started checking a different bag looped over his haunches. “Dusty told me she talked to a SkyWing about firescales.”

“Ah, you’ve been noted by the grandma gossip network,” Shai sighed, rolling her eyes. “What did she say?”

“That I was starving to death.” Peril ate the rest of her dumpling. “Had you noticed?”

“It was kind of hard not to,” Shai admitted, giving her an apologetic shrug. “I know SkyWings aren’t the bulkiest dragons, but…”

Peril couldn’t help but frown at her breakfast. “Do you think that’s why I was so irritable all the time?”

“You’d know better than I would. By the sands, Scarab, how many bags do you have?”

Peril blinked, turning to the black SandWing. He’d started unpacking his larger haunch bag, piling the contents on the table as he did so. Bull was absently stacking the coins closest to him, amidst a chaos of purses, trinkets, and small paper bags that were vaguely damp.

Scarab blinked down at it. “Well, the greasy ones are just snacks. Don’t criticize my packing habits.”

As he went back to digging - Peril wondered what kind of gifts could  _ possibly _ be hiding in that mess - Shai turned back to her. “Anything else?”

“That I was banished from the Sky Queendom for my own good,” Peril answered matter-of-factly, “and that I’m going to need to let my body recover for a while.”

Shai looked down at her plate.

“...Did you know that already?” Peril asked warily.

Shai worried at her lip with her teeth. “I… might have known about the banishing bit.”

Peril stared at her, eyes narrowed. After a moment, she remembered. “The letter from Queen Ruby?”

“Yeah,” Shai admitted, nearly radiating guilt. “I was going to read it out to you, but I didn’t want anyone overhearing, and we didn’t know each other very well-”

“Do you remember what it said?”

Shai glanced at her brothers. “I’ll tell you once we’re alone, I promise.”

Peril gave her a wordless grumble in reply. “How does she even know that much about the Sky Queendom, anyway?”

“I guess you haven’t spent much time around grandparents,” Shai said apologetically. “I don’t know how it is for the other flocks, but if an old SandWing can get a word in edgewise, you better get comfortable, because you’re not going anywhere until they’re done talking to you. Dusty meets up with the other old ladies at the Oasis every Cai-sun and they play beetles and gossip.”

“I don’t know what most of that last sentence meant,” Peril replied cheerfully.

“Well, the Oasis is a little restaurant over by the reservoir, and beetles is this weird little game with marbles that I don’t really understand the rules of, but I’m not really sure Dusty does either.” Shai glanced over at Scarab, who was glaring mutinously at his bag. “You alright over there?”

“My goof has been ruined,” he pouted, beginning to sort through his pile of junk, “and so you will all have to hold your breath for my superior sense of humor at a later date.”

Shai grabbed something out of one of the bags on the table, holding up a translucent, pinkish disc that, to Peril’s surprise, seemed to have an entire scorpion stuck inside of it. “Were you bribing Agave again?”

“I am an honest customer doing honest business,” Scarab retorted, “and I’m saving that for later, so put it back.”

Shai obliged, though she stared at the pile with a little more suspicion. “Were you out all night?”

“None of your business.”

“Were you drowning your sorrows in sugar milk?”

Scarab rolled his eyes, taking another of Shai’s bread rolls to point at her with. “I don’t  _ sorrow _ . I just like sugar milk, and it goes off if you travel with it, so I’m going to indulge myself while we’re here.”

“Wait, you don’t have to stay here because I have to,” Peril protested. “You have sales to do, and I’m sure I can make it to the capital by myself when I feel better.”

“One,” Scarab said, jabbing the roll at her, “you have no idea where anything is in the desert, and firescales or not you wouldn’t last three days on your own out in the sand. Two, Bull’s shoulder needs to heal-” Bull gave an affirming nod, “-and three, we’re not going to leave you alone after coming this far.”

Shai smiled feebly at Peril. “I’ll be honest, I don’t think Dusty would let me go without you.”

Bull laughed silently and mumbled something that seemed suspiciously like ‘ _ lovebirds’ _ .

“If you’re feeling up to it,” Shai continued, ignoring him, “we could start getting your muscles back into shape. Walk around the city for a while?”

“Will there be lunch when we get back?” Peril asked hopefully.

Shai snorted, standing up. “I’m not going to let you starve, I promise.”

Peril got up as well, chirping a cheerful goodbye to the brothers as Scarab continued to stuff things back into his bag.

“The little reddish bag is yours,” he told Bull, barely looking up, “I know you like those cheesy bread things that Whirlwind makes, so I picked some up. They should still be warm. You having a quiet day?”

Bull nodded, taking the bag from the pile. Scarab’s ears pricked as something fell out of Bull’s claws. 

He peered around the side, looking at the small box that his brother had left. With a betrayed gasp, he craned his neck in the hopes of seeing Peril and Shai, but the two were already far beyond his sight, lost in the tents.

“Everyone in my family is out to get me,” he groaned, tucking the box into the smaller bag at his shoulder. “And I got you cheese thingies and everything.”

Bull shrugged, smiling, and gave Scarab a knowing look.

“It’s not  _ engagement rings! _ ” Scarab protested. “I think Peril would think it was cute.”

Bull raised an eyebrow.

“Shai killing me is a side effect I have to accept,” he agreed.

 

\-----

 

Peril walked steadily around the outskirts of the city, leaning against Shai, who had draped a wing over her back. She felt like she was buzzing from her teeth to her tail, but she couldn’t tell whether that was joy at being so close to a dragon who  _ loved  _ her, or if she was teetering on the edge of passing out.

“-and after I’d chased him through half of the capital in the middle of the sands-blasted night, I finally caught up to teach him a lesson for looking through my stuff and it was just Scarab in a stupid mask.”

“Did he think it was stupid?”

Shai snorted. “Of course not. Complimented the workmanship all the way home to tease me about believing he was actually a weredragon.”

“And that’s why he sucks up to Agave?”

“By the three moons, she’s a wonderful dragon on her own, sweet as sugar, loves kids, but she thinks Scarab’s jokes are the cutest things. She’ll pull every scale she can to help him out.”

“Does he…?”

“Oh, he adores her. He’s called her mom before.” Shai nodded, touching her nose to the scales behind Peril’s ear. “Your pulse is getting a little high, want to sit for a bit?”

Peril agreed, grateful as Shai guided her over to a little plaza with a fountain. The two drakkas just lay together, enjoying the quiet.

“Did you mean it,” Shai asked quietly, “when you said you’d be okay with a relationship with me?”

“I’m snuggling with you, aren’t I?” Peril replied. 

“I just don’t want you to feel rushed. You’ve been through a lot, you don’t have to dive into this headfirst. It’s okay to want to wait. And if you do, you should say it quickly, before the grandma network spreads our relationship across the whole continent.”

Peril looked down at her claws. Her scales were as bright a yellow as they ever were when she was filled up with emotion, but they were still safely warm to the touch.  _ There’ll be time to focus on that later,  _ she told herself.

“The times I spend with you have been the happiest of my entire life,” Peril said into the silence. “I don’t know what the future will bring, but I feel… calm. Balanced. And not like you’re a counterweight, but like you’ve removed what was putting me off kilter before. As long as you’re willing - as long as you’re  _ happy  _ to be with me, I’d love you to stay.”

“I know it’s serious when you get metaphorical,” Shai teased, angling her shoulder so it bumped Peril’s. “As long as being with you makes you as happy as you looked when I held your hand in the tent, I want to stay with you too.”

Peril purred, elated. “I might not always know what to do with this ‘relationship’ stuff, though. Haven’t had much experience with it.”

“Don’t come looking to  _ me  _ for that. A few errant crushes that I never made a move on isn’t exactly experience.”

“I’ll ask Scarab, then.”

“If you let Scarab any further into our love life than he wedges himself, that’s grounds for a divorce.” Shai laughed. “Ask Bull if you want real advice.”

“Bull?”

“He’s got a cute little drakka fiance up in the Ice Kingdom,” Shai elaborated. “Not my type, but she’s rather beautiful. And fit, and smart. She’s been doing experiments with lightning up on the glaciers. It’s all a bit beyond me, but her and Bull will just snuggle together and do math for hours, in silence.”

“I’d like that,” Peril admitted. “A place to just exist together, no responsibilities.”

Shai cast her an amused look. “Planning to propose already?”

“There’s no reason not to, is there?” Peril replied innocently. “We could settle in here and visit Dusty for breakfast.”

“You won’t want to tease me about her once she’s been mothering you through this, I swear by my scales.” Shai contentedly pressed her cheek to Peril’s. “ _ But _ , if you’re still serious after our little mission is done, we can look at finding a place to live together. I can’t say I’ll want to wander for too much longer.”

“We’re still together until then,” Peril murmured.

“I wouldn’t abandon you for the world,” Shai replied.

Peril’s heart sang.


	17. Chapter 13

_ To Peril, _

_ You are free to leave the city whenever you wish. I could not keep you here, and if your heart draws you elsewhere, I hope it is a place where you can find joy. I hope being sent away from the Queendom did not cause you any strife; it was what you needed, though I could not tell you that. _

_ She was both of our mothers, in a way, and she too took my sibling from me. The Sky Queendom and my home is open to you, and you may roam where you wish. I only ask that you inform the guards or Harrier when you are present, so we can properly corral young Cliff. Carnelian is doing well, but she is not well enough to be moved to the Queendom yet, and certainly not well enough to be Cliff’s keeper yet. _

_ You do not have to face your burdens alone. _

_ Wind guide you, _

_ Queen Ruby _

 

\-----

 

“Talk to me,” Shai said, leaning out over the edge of the city’s wall to feel the desert wind against her scales. “About anything. Get it out of your head.”

Peril leaned out alongside her, talons tight on the ancient, weathered stone. Every inch of her body felt like it was crawling with ants; even Sky hadn’t had an answer, but hazarded a guess that it was the skin under her scales trying to heal from the burns it had been carrying for so many long years. It was driving Peril mad every time she tried to stand still, but she wasn’t quite strong enough to keep moving constantly. 

So she talked. 

“It wasn’t just that I couldn’t open the letter.” Peril admitted. “I never learned to read or write. I guess Scarlet didn’t think it would be worth it when I burned every scroll I touched.”

“I can teach you,” Shai offered. “We’ve certainly got time.”

Peril nodded, standing to leave, but Shai just dug into her bag and pulled out a small stick of charcoal written in cloth. She shifted away from Peril, and to her surprise, wrote a line of characters on the sandy-colored stone.

“Is that legal?” Peril asked.

“It’s a wall, not a historical site.” Shai replied, gesturing to the series of jagged lines. “That’s  _ my _ name, in Pyrrhic. Take the stick.”

Peril carefully lifted the charcoal from Shai’s claws. It felt sturdier than she had expected, and she tried to mimic the way Shai had held it between her first two talons and thumb.

Shai gently corrected her method, pointing out how it would hard to write with if she held it wrong. She also didn’t mention the whirls of yellow and gold beginning to swirl up Peril’s talons; Peril figured, by the look on Shai’s face, that nothing short of Peril bursting into flame would end this lesson, and only because it would mean she’d have to find a new piece of charcoal.

Shai traced out the first character in the thin, gritty layer of sand; a straight vertical line with two triangles sticking out on the right at either end. Peril shakily copied it, her talons feeling too large and awkward to hold her makeshift pen correctly. Shai didn’t comment on it, but moved on to the next character, two vertical lines connected by a V. Peril started to feel like she was improving by the next three, but then Shai sat back, satisfied.

She answered Peril’s confused look as she flicked sand out from the corners of her claws. “You finished the word. Practice it for a bit, get the feel of writing.”

“What does it say?” Peril asked, looking down at the chain of symbols.

A small smile quirked the corner of Shai’s mouth. “It’s P-E-R-I-L. Peril!”

Peril felt her whole body blaze a few happy shades brighter. This time Shai  _ did  _ mention it.

“When we first met, I thought that was a temperature thing,” she observed. “But it certainly doesn’t seem to be now. Never seen anything like it on a SkyWing before.”

“I thought it was temperature too,” Peril admitted, her thoughts drifting back to Jade Mountain. “There was a RainWing dragonet who commented on it, once, wondering if I was part RainWing. But… even though I never knew my dad, I was in a  _ SkyWing  _ breeding program.”

Shai grimaced. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that being a thing. The Queen deciding who you’re supposed to have kids with. It feels like trying to get the best soldiers instead of trying to get children.”

“The Queen didn’t seem to think both things were that different.” Peril shrugged.

Shai cast her an apologetic glance. “... what was it like? If you want to talk about it.”

Peril leaned back out over the edge of wall, looking up at the sky. She could almost pretend there wasn’t stone under her feet, that she was airborne. Dusty had told Shai to keep her grounded until she was stronger, and Peril hadn’t realized how much she’d taken flying for granted until it was taken away.

“I wasn’t her daughter,” Peril mused, feeling her voice rattle with distance. She wasn’t on the wall; she was inside herself, digging deeper than she ever had before meeting Shai, her talons breaking through the darkness and the fear to remind her of how things used to be. “I was her champion. I killed for her, because she told me to, and she told me she was keeping me alive. Maybe she was; another SkyWing would have killed me if I wasn’t under her protection.

“She started putting me in battles before I’d even fledged, but no dragon could kill me. If they pitied me and wouldn’t fight, she... I... they died. I killed some of them. Sometimes other dragons did. I - I never challenged her. She was the only mother, the only safety, I had. Even if that safety was in battle.”

Shai  _ hmm _ ed. “I’m glad you weren’t her daughter.”

Wordlessly, Peril drew herself back to her scales, shaking. Fire edged under her scales, the lingering, searing agony of existing on the edge of a knife - of a talon - of a throne.

Shai leaned over, hesitating at Peril’s sudden blaze of heat. Instead of contact, she offered a comforting murmur, and then, softly, she began to sing. Her voice was quiet, unsteady, like the hiss of sand as it tumbled from the peak of a dune, and the words she spoke were in a language Peril had barely begun to learn.

But her tone told her stories of hope, and progress, and faith, and fate, and Peril’s heartache eased. Softly, gently, carefully, she felt Shai’s wing settle across her firescaled back, where it banished the heat without a sound.

 

\-----

 

Fishing lessons were not what Peril had expected to be a part of desert recovery training, but at Dusty’s repeated heavy hints of how nice it would be to cook seafood for Peril, Shai relented and took Peril out across the sand. 

They hadn’t gone far; under a nearby rocky ridge, a low doorway opened to a wide, water-filled cave, surprisingly stocked with fish. Shai had, in her usual way, explained that the fishery was maintained deeper in the cave, and this pool was just for swimming and fishing, for those who wanted to practice the skill or grab a quick meal.

(The actual eating of the fish had made Peril nearly burn up all of her hard work; the feel of her teeth biting through scales, even the small and fragile ones fish had, was  _ not  _ a sensation she ever wanted back, and Shai had quickly worked to calm her back down.)

Peril ducked out of the tent that night, leaving Shai drowsing in the tent, her claws twitching in dreams. She wove through the tents, keeping her head ducked so she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, until she had passed the wall and padded out to the shallow pool they’d originally landed alongside. 

Planting her feet in the sand, she thought back to how Shai had fished with her tail, always careful to keep from pumping venom into the barb. The visualization came to her easily; Shai beside the pool, kneeling down with her head withdrawn and her tail arcing gracefully over her hunched back. Her dark eyes flickered over the gently rippling water, the rest of her body tense, until she spied the flash of fishy scales and her tail folded forward and punched through the water as well as any spear. Shai drew her tail back with a cocky grin, a silvery fish speared on the tip, and flicked the barb to drop her catch at her side. 

Peril crouched down, trying to replicate the posture, but her paws didn’t catch the sand as well as she was expecting and slid forward, and Peril dropped to the ground with a startled huff.

Her second attempt went a little better, since she stayed on her feet, but her hind end was so high up that it felt more like rude gesture than hunting posture. She lowered her hips, but then she couldn’t get her tail to arc high enough to do anything but poke her shoulders. 

Snarling in frustration, she let her tail fall back behind her and focused on the crouching, trying to keep her balance as she pulled her feet closer and closer together. She figured out her balance soon enough, and then practiced with one leg lifted, and then two. By the time she was confident on one hind leg and one foreleg, she’d fallen to the ground so many times it looked like an impact crater.

She sat down for a second, tired, and looked over at the city, aglow and bustling in the dark. Peril couldn’t help but feel jealous of the Shai’s smooth muscles and powerful tail. She felt like a dead weight next to the SandWings now that she was so weakened, even if the fact she could exercise on her own proved she was getting stronger.

A fierce desire to impress Shai came over her as she hefted herself back on to her feet, dropping back into the hunting crouch. She knew she could compare to her if she kept practicing. She just HAD to. If she was going to be with Shai for… however long Shai wanted to be with her, she wasn’t going to be a dead weight. And once she figured this out, she could prove her teeth and claws were good for something other than battle - though she wasn’t sure if that was for Shai’s sake or her own.

Hearing something skitter ahead, she jumped forward, keeping her wings tucked and her body flat. In the heartbeat she was in the air, she realized this wasn’t something Shai had taught her; she was recalling lessons she’d had as a dragonet, guided by a red drakka who felt like home.

And then she hit the sand, pinning a small lizard between her paws. She hadn’t even known that was what she was jumping for, but there it was, small and rather spiny. Peril lifted her paws, watching as it scrambled away and disappeared against the sand.

Peril stood up, flexing her claws. She let her movements ease, letting generations upon generations of SkyWings before her lead her talons more than her own thoughts. Peril grinned. She couldn’t  _ wait _ to see the look on Shai’s face.

 

\-----

 

It took Peril two weeks to be looking well enough for Dusty to let her leave. Two weeks of stuffing herself on SandWing dishes she could never remember all of the names of, two weeks of taking long brisk walks with Shai around the city (and far more than two weeks worth of little compliments and loving touches), two weeks of practicing her stretches with Scarab - not the most fun part of the week, with how flexible he was, and how flexible she  _ wasn’t _ \- and two weeks of spending her rosy-colored nights curled up with Shai, feeling warm and safe. 

Peril awoke the next morning with a long, luxurious stretch. She went slowly, relishing her last lazy morning before they set out towards the capital; her muscles were stiff with sleep, and with Shai waking earlier than she usually did, Peril had the space to flex all of the knots out of them.

She was just finishing up with her shoulders when Scarab pushed the flap open, dispelling the stuffy air trapped inside the tent. She turned to him, confused but not startled; if Peril slept too late, Shai usually sent him to drag her out on her blanket while she finished breakfast.

“I’m awake, I’m just drowsy,” she informed him, sitting up. Seeing his concerned frown, doubt pricked at her back. “Is everything okay?”

“Shai hasn’t been to breakfast,” he muttered, his voice tense. “I was hoping she was with you.”

“She was here when I went to sleep,” Peril said, confused. “You sure she didn’t just eat before you?”

Scarab shook his head. “Dusty would have seen her. She must have gone out during the night, when it was busy.”

“You don’t think she’s hurt, do you?” Peril asked. “Someone would have noticed, right?”

Scarab was leaning further in, looking around as if Shai might have left a trail of shed scales for him to follow. “I would usually say she would be fine, but I would also usually say the trading roads are safe. You’re sure you haven’t seen her?”

“I only just woke up,” Peril agreed. “I’ll come looking, just give me a few moments to clear my head.”

Scarab withdrew with a terse nod. Peril quickly stretched her hind legs and tail, all enjoyment of the moment gone. The tip of her tail flicking nervously, she ducked out of the tent, joining Scarab where he was sitting outside.

He stood up as she approached, looking fidgety. “Bull is staying with Dusty in case Shai comes back. He’s not feeling up to talking to strangers today, so it’s just us.”

Peril nodded, falling into step behind him as he led the way through the maze of tents. “What do you think happened?”

“I’m  _ hoping  _ she went out and met some friends or relatives who convinced her to stay the night, and who are making her stay for breakfast. But it’s weird of her to wander off - she would have at least told Dusty she was going out.”

Peril couldn’t help the cold fear that lanced down her back. She trailed back for a few steps as she tried to remember if Shai had mentioned anything the previous day, but it had all seemed ordinary. She hadn’t seemed stressed about leaving for the capital, or shown any kind of worry about their supplies that might have prompted her into going out. Peril wasn’t confident that she’d wandered off with friends, either; aside from Dusty, Shai didn’t seem to know many other dragons in the city beyond a casual acquaintance, and those they’d run into on their walks didn’t seem close enough to invite her over.

She ran into Scarab’s tail as he came to an abrupt stop ahead of her. Stumbling over her own claws, Peril walked up beside him. He was bent over a small stain on the ground, so small that Peril would have thought it was just a shadow. His nostrils were flaring.

Peril realized what it was a moment before he said it.

“It’s blood,” he murmured, his voice as thin and brittle as ice. “And it’s Shai’s.”

Peril stared at him, and then frantically looked around. A part of her knew it had to be old, that there was no way she would just see Shai wandering nearby, licking a paper cut or something else trivial. Her blood felt like it was running cold as she scanned the faces of late-morning sleepers finally heading to bed, hoping to see someone she recognized, someone she knew. Instead, her gaze was drawn to a dragon at the very edge of the crowd, just disappearing out of one of the arches of the city's wall.

The NightWing she'd killed vanished from sight, heading out into the desert.


	18. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait, love u guys

Peril shoved past Scarab, her gaze locked on the city wall and the ghost of a shadow that the NightWing’s body had left in her memory. Dragons parted in front of her, startled and wanting to avoid being tackled, though they nearly charged into each other. Peril felt rather than knew that Scarab would be following, weaving like a snake through the chaos she was leaving in her path. 

She broke out into the open desert, and instantly found the dark scales of the NightWing in the air ahead. And, far beyond them, a second winged figure, too distant to make out the details of; the only giveaway was the speed of their wingbeats - the larger NightWing, probably the one that had been staring at her before, and flying fast.

Without hesitation, Peril leaped into the air, her body responding so strongly that it felt almost alien.  _ This _ , she thought, not without brief distraction,  _ is what a SkyWing is supposed to feel like in the air _ . She was the wind made flesh and bone, and this - the searing light of day and the wide blue sky - was  _ her  _ domain, her birthright. And the dragon that had given her the chance to claim it was being borne away across the desert.

She caught up to the smaller NightWing in moments, taking a sickening satisfaction in realizing that whatever had kept them from dying hadn’t been able to bring them back to full health. Their body was thin and wasted, their wings trembling; Peril had to bite back the pity and horror that came with the realization that  _ she  _ had probably looked like that only a few weeks before.

Peril dropped down from above the NightWing, pinning their wings to their sides with her hind talons as she banked to land. Once she’d lost enough height and speed that she wouldn’t kill them, she flicked her wings back and tossed them forward.

The NightWing rolled through the sand, barely trying to resist the impact. They skidded to a stop and Peril landed beside them, her breath heaving. Scarab came to a wary landing a few tail-lengths away, scanning the sky with dark, troubled eyes.

Peril shoved her muzzle into the NightWing’s face. “What did you do with Shai?!”

They spat out a mouthful of sand and grit, but gone was the cruel sneer that they’d worn last; they just looked ashamed, and no small amount of scared.

“It wasn’t  _ my  _ idea,” they whimpered. “You _ killed _ me! I was within an arm-length of going back to the stars! I’d be happier if I never saw you or your weird friends ever again.”

“Who’s idea WAS it?” Peril snarled, feeling heat trickling up her back. She forced out a huff of hot air, clamping down on her own fire, but the breath still whisked dangerously in the sand beside the NightWing’s head.

“So you  _ did _ die,” Scarab noted, walking up beside her. 

“I don’t have any answers! Shapeshifter brought me back to life and made me tell him where you were and who you were with, as payment.” The NightWing twisted their head back, trying to show submission. “That seemed an honest price for a second chance at life!”

“How did he bring you back?” Peril demanded. “What power does he have?”

“He has this - this bone - I don’t know how he uses it, but it brought me back to life. And I had to stay, because he’s strong, stronger than any other dragon I’ve met,” the NightWing babbled, looking desperately between Peril and Scarab. “I - he didn’t want me to leave until he was done his work. I don’t know what it was, but I wasn’t healthy enough to fly yet, and if I ran away into the city he would find me. I had to wait. I promise, I’m not with him! I’m not even like him! I - I guess I’m an asshole, I mean, but I don’t kidnap dragons!”

“You attacked us,” Scarab observed calmly. 

“I wouldn’t have killed you!” They pleaded. “I was hungry and thirsty. I didn’t want to stay with the other NightWings, but I didn’t know where else to go, and the desert was far enough away that they wouldn’t follow me.”

“Something has changed with the NightWings?” Scarab asked. 

“The only NightWing that matters is the one taking Shai!” Peril protested. “We have to follow him.”

The black-red NightWing wriggled free of Peril’s talons, shaking. “Shapeshifter said he wanted a fighter for something. I don’t know what. Maybe he’s hoping you’ll follow him and get trapped. But he’s… he’s strong,” they finished lamely, rubbing at their forearm. “And he’s got the healing bone. I don’t think you can kill him.”

“I can kill anything,” Peril growled. 

Scarab gave her a cold look, but turned to the NightWing. “Go back to the city. Find Dusty the SandWing. Apologize to my brother, and she’ll take care of you until you can fly. Now go.”

The NightWing fled, their wingbeats awkward and sore as they veered towards the walled city. Scarab watched them go, his expression unreadable.

“I should have killed them a second time.” Peril snapped. 

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Scarab snapped. “Calm down before you burn yourself to a cinder and we have to wait another month before you can fly.”

Surprised at his harshness, Peril’s fire went out as quickly as a candle, though her anger still burned. The black SandWing was tense, his ears pinned back, his claws fidgeting as he thought.

“...We have to keep going to the capital,” he said at last, his eyes closing. 

“We can’t leave her!” Peril protested, glancing between him and the distant horizon. “We have no idea what’s going to happen to her!”

“I know that!” Scarab snapped, bristling. “But if that dragon saw you when you first arrived, that means he’s been waiting to make his move, and he waited until you were healthy. That means he expects you to put up a fight, and maybe he  _ wants  _ one, which means that chasing after Shai now, without a moment to prepare, is the worst thing we could do.”

“Nothing can stop me from getting her back!”

“Then time won’t either.” Scarab said, voice hard. “If we fly straight, unburdened, we can make it to the capital by nightfall. And then we’ll know if the Queen knows anything, and we’ll probably be able to get backup from her or hire someone.”

“ _ I’m  _ supposed to be Shai’s bodyguard!”

Scarab rounded on her, baring his teeth. “Then you can’t get yourself killed, can you?!”

“And let  _ her  _ get killed instead? She’s your sister!”

“Did you  _ let  _ your brother be killed?”

Peril’s anger faltered, skidding down the unsteady slope into grief. Her racing heart dulled to an agonizing throb. “There was nothing I could do,” she muttered.

Scarab’s shoulders shifted in a way that suggested he had quickly stifled an apology, and sighed. “There’s nothing we can do  _ now,  _ either. You’re stronger than you were as a dragonet, but if you’re  _ smarter,  _ you’ll know that. Whatever trap we’re being led into isn’t one we can fight out of on our own.” He gave Peril a cautious bump with his wing. “We’ll get her back. Just not now. I won’t leave Bull alone.”

“ _ Shai _ is alone,” Peril whimpered.

“ _ Shai  _ knows we won’t leave her any longer than we have to,” Scarab said, “and she would hope that we were smart enough to get backup. Or at least tell someone where we’re going.”

Peril nodded. Scarab gave the horizon a last, long scan, as if burning it into his memory, before turning and padding back to the city. Peril trailed behind him, though she kept glancing back, as if she would see Shai veering back across the sky to meet them.

At Scarab’s side, she wasn’t shoved by the crowd or given any strange looks, but her heart still clenched as the two of them ducked into the walled city; Peril found her gaze straying over every stranger, noting their muscles and their size. They’d been travelling alone for so long that Peril had somewhat forgotten what other dragons really looked like, and while she was recovering, she didn’t enjoy looking at anything except Shai. Some part of her had built the SandWing up into a powerhouse, a warrior, a dragon hatched for battle. 

_ Like you were,  _ her mind whispered.

But Shai  _ wasn’t  _ like her. Shai was strong, that was no mistake, but she didn’t gain her strength in battle. She was strong like every other SandWing merchant Peril saw was; in their wings, their legs, their voices, but not in their claws, in their teeth, in their tails. There were no fresh wounds, only old scars, from the war or from little accidents. Peril could imagine all of these dragons happily living out their lives without ever lifting a claw against another dragon.

With every step away from Shai, further into the city, one thought dug its way into Peril’s mind as easily as if it were a shard of glass in her pad;  _ Shai would be perfectly happy without fighting, too.  _

 

~~~~~

 

The rest of the day passed in a rush. Scarab and Bull left what remained of their goods with Dusty and the NightWing - Trademaker, fittingly - both to lighten their wings on their journey and to pay for Trademaker’s care. Dusty seemed rather calm, given the situation, but Trademaker was practically tripping over themselves trying to show how grateful they were for the help. Peril was both relieved and insulted that she was left out of this stumbling, until one of her sidelong glares caught the suppressed terror on Trademaker’s face.

She did her best to stay out of their way completely, after that.

“Stay behind me, and in earshot.” Scarab rumbled. He jumped up from the sand and coasted off, low across the dunes, until he caught a thermal and began a steep rise into the sky. 

Peril gave Bull a sideways glance, and he nodded for her to go ahead. Her own rise was under her own power; she lacked the sharpness of vision that allowed SandWings to notice a thermal’s wavering heat against the bright sand. Bull rose behind her, giving his shoulder some experimental rolls as he did.

“I let her go,” Peril said, as soon as they’d both leveled out, wingtips nearly touching. “I could have chased her, and I let her go. What if something happens to her?”

Bull didn’t answer aloud, but gave her a probing look.

“I… dragons die a lot. Or, they died a lot. Before the war ended. And when the war ended, I thought maybe it would be done forever.”

“Death?” He rumbled.

“Killing,” Peril clarified. “But even Jade Mountain Academy - someone  _ wanted  _ dragonets to die, I think. Dragonets that would have been barely old enough to understand the war when it was happening, who shouldn’t have had that battle on their claws. And I wasn’t… surprised, I guess. I don’t think I expected it to end.”

Another silence.

“Being with Shai was my first glimpse of a world where things were… peaceful.” Peril said.

Bull  _ hmm _ ed.

“If she dies, what happens to me?”

Bull  _ hmm _ ed, his tone a little harsher. 

Peril  _ hmm _ ed back, her tone distinctly questioning. 

“Shai is a dragon,” Bull said slowly, considering each word heavily, “she is a SandWing, a subject to Queen Thorn, a daughter to Arroyo, a sister to Scarab and I. Given time, I think she would want to be a partner to you.”

Something about Bull’s tone had the substance of a rockfall gaining speed, each word a new stone bearing down on an impact that Peril was at once both trying to brace herself for and trying to flee desperately from.

“What Shai is not,” Bull continued, his soft voice nearly thunderous against the open sky, “is a tool for your survival.”

If Peril’s muscles were currently listening to her thoughts, her wings would have seized until she crashed into the ground.

“Find support in her. Find safety in her. But you must do this recognizing that she is still her own dragon. There may be a time when she decides you two must part, and this parting can’t be at the cost of your life.”

“I’m scared,” Peril said weakly. “I’m scared of being alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Bull reminded her. ”You have us. You have Clay, you have those guards from the palace, I believe you have the SkyWing Queen herself. You are not alone.”

Peril was silent.

Bull bumped the tip of his wing against hers. “You have the strength within you. You don’t need to have another dragon be your anchor. You are whole.”

“I don’t think I am,” Peril protested. “There’s me, and then in the holes of me, there’s fire. Other dragons can plug up the holes.”

“The fire is just as much you as the everything else. My talons and my teeth and my tail are mine, even though they’re dangerous. Your fire is just as much yours. There are no holes in you.”

“I’m not ready,” Peril protested, but it seemed like an excuse even as she said it.

Bull just nodded, patiently. “You will be.”


	19. PART THREE

* * *

 

\- Part Three -

**The Queen's Champion**

 

* * *

 


	20. Chapter 15

Ryvali spread across the desert like an oasis, a sea of colored tarps and glittering lights that dappled the surrounding dunes with rainbow light even while competing with the three moons bright and high above. Ancient spires of rock lined the outskirts, a stone-wrought rib cage around the desert’s vivid heart. Narrow wooden spars bridged the gaps, loaded with now-furled sails, a brief command away from shrouding the city at the first sight of an incoming storm.

Peril’s heart sang with the beauty of it even as her mind grappled with the grief of not having her partner at her wing to witness it. Scarab dipped left, directing her and Bull to continue forward, and then banked away along the spires into the night.

Bull slowed in front of her, sedately gliding between the spires ahead. Peril glanced around, and met the eyes of the guards roosting on the spars, metal glinting around their claws and muzzles. Peril got the sense she was being committed to memory, but there was no challenge as Bull guided her deeper into the city.

The night air warmed as the city rose closer; chill desert winds coasted over a miasma of cooking smoke and incense, carrying the voices of dragons in a number impossible to count.

“Are all SandWing cities this big?” Peril called to Bull, her eyes scanning the crowd.

“It’s the desert,” Bull replied. “There aren’t as many places between cities to live. No single-family territories like the mountains. You live in a city, or you die.”

Peril couldn’t really think of a good reply to that. Instead, she hazarded, “Shai mentioned an underground lake here.”

Bull nodded. “We have no time to sightsee. We will return… after.”

“After,” Peril echoed.  _ There will be an after, either way. _

Scarab soared back into view, leading them into a gentle curve away from the bustling market roads and into the quieter residential districts. His scales glittered with gold as he landed in the gentle lanternlight. Bull landed beside him, sand eddying away from his wingbeats, and Peril cleared them both to come to a graceful running landing in front, her wings too large to land how they did. 

“The Queen will know we’re coming,” Scarab said as Peril jogged back towards them, his low voice carrying in the quiet. “Try not to be too shocked. She knows everything that happens in this city, and the rest of the desert is only a heartbeat behind.”

“I don’t see any guards,” Peril said. 

“She doesn’t need them,” he answered simply. He turned to the building beside them. “Alright, you first.”

Peril stared at the doorway. There was absolutely nothing notable about it, but the little ring of colored stones set around the opening were, in her opinion, a very nice black and orange diamond pattern. Judging from the other doors, this wasn’t unusual; they all seemed to have some kind of ornamentation - but since they were all holes in a wall of solid, creamy-brown sandstone, it was likely so dragons knew which was theirs.

Peril ducked under the arch, squinting into the dark. She paused as she felt the room end, confused.

Scarab’s voice, muffled by the stone and the rest of Peril, drifted over her shoulder. “There’s a door in the stone. The entry rooms are for storm protection, or deliveries. Just knock.”

Peril cautiously raised a claw. It felt like she had barely tapped the surface before it slid away, bringing her face to face with a dragon whose tan scales were striped with elegant black swirls, so exact that there was no way they were natural. They had a heavy copper chain around their neck, with a twisted hunk of black stone hanging from it. Peril guessed they were about twice her age.

“Is this the visitor you were expecting?” The dragon said, talking to someone behind them without turning away from Peril. 

There was a soft, slithery noise - someone sitting up. “Ah, yes,” another voice said from behind. “Peril, I’ve heard so much about you. Onyx, do let her come in.”

The tattooed drakka gave her one more critical look-over before backing up, giving Peril enough space to squeeze into…

… a very, very large room. There was a short ramp down to the floor, which looked as though it was much lower than the ground level outside, and it was pleasantly cool on her talons. A large woven rug covered most of the floor, and the walls were painted with bright, thick lines and waves. It was also much brighter than Peril had been expecting; she found herself squinting after the darkness of the outer room.

Three dragons - not counting the one who had met her at the door - were lying on the rug, chests resting on patterned pillows. Two were older dragons; one was a younger drakka, and the one who had spoken. Peril didn’t know much about SandWing ages, but she could assume that the two yet-silent dragons were a fair bit older than the drakkas; one looked as though they might be the first drakka’s parent, with the same brown-rimmed scales.

She also noted, rather rapidly, that Onyx lay down where she could rest her wing over the other drakka’s back, and that the two dragons were practically glued together by the flanks. 

“Come, have a seat,” the second drakka said, tilting her head towards the empty space. The tone was friendly enough, but something about the way the drakka moved skipped past Peril’s ears hearing ‘suggestion’ and burrowed ‘command’ into her brain.

Peril sat.

Scarab and Bull followed behind her, both dipping their heads low in deference. The tattooed drakka seemed to preen in the attention, but the other merely nodded at them in return. Her eyes met Peril’s; the cool, calculating look that the dark-eyed drakka gave her was more than enough proof that this was the Queen.

“You have recognized me, I would imagine,” Queen Thorn said, giving a slight dip of her head. “My companion is the Queen-Consort Onyx; the two drakkes are my advisors, Six-Claws and Smolder. Smolder, send a semaphore to the guard towers so they know the visitors have arrived safely.”

The drakke with the brown-edged scales nodded, untangling himself from the other and walking over to the window. It was overlooking a small garden, dark and cool where it was tucked between the rows of houses, but the drakke’s destination was a small box on the sill. As Peril watched, he lit the wick inside and began fluttering the cover. After a few moments of stillness, she caught a glimmer from the distant sky as one of the towers signalled back.

He turned, smiling as he noticed Peril’s unabashed curiosity. “Signal sent and received, your majesty. All clear.”

“Good.” Queen Thorn replied. “Scarab, Bull, I have reviewed your report of a rogue dragon targeting trade caravans and I am pleased by your initiative in capturing them. I hope they have not been causing any trouble while under supervision?”

“No, your majesty,” Scarab answered. “They seem open to doing community service until they have worked off the debt of the community.”

“And they are being kept in line by what force?” Smolder asked.

“One of my family, the lady Dusty, has taken them under her wing.”

Smolder frowned and opened his mouth, but Thorn held up a talon to quiet him. “I know of this drakka. I would be very surprised if a single dragon would do any harm to her. Thank you for this service, Scarab, Bull, and I will ensure Dusty receives reward for her action. You, of course, will also have reward, but with your news it may have to wait. I’ve read the report though the semaphore, but I would like to hear it from your voice.”

Scarab glanced sideways at Peril, as if urging her to take the lead. Peril stared at him and said absolutely nothing.

“...we have reason to believe that my sister has been taken prisoner by a NightWing named Shapeshifter in order to bait Peril into a trap further out in the desert,” Scarab explained, “but all we know for sure is that she’s been taken.”

“Was there any message or symbol left behind?” Thorn asked.

“Nothing; we believe Shapeshifter lingered to ensure they would be seen, otherwise there was no signature left on the attack.”

The Queen turned away; Scarab almost imperceptibly relaxed as that steady gaze left his face. “Six-Claws, have the aerial guard sweep the desert for any signs of passage, and have descriptions of NightWings passing the gates sent to Smolder.” She paused, turning to him. “I want you stationed at Vulture’s Row; see if you can get any information out of the records or dragons there. Make second copies of anything important, and keep them hidden.”

Both drakkes dipped their heads and got to their feet, briefly touching noses before passing Peril and the brothers and walking out to the street. Thorn shifted her weight briefly to watch them go. 

The Queen didn’t lose any of her professionalism with the older dragons gone. She looked over her shoulder at Onyx, who returned the glance with a stern glare of her own. 

“Find out whatever you can,” Thorn said simply.

Onyx nodded as if this was all the instruction she needed and rose to her feet, following the drakkes into the city. Onyx sat up, this time, as if making sure she could move to protect the drakka if she had to.

“You three,” she said once the door had shut, “will be sleeping in the guard’s barracks at Vulture’s Row. I need you where you can be kept safe, and near our worst criminals is where the guard is heaviest. If you set one talon beyond the city limits, I expect to be informed beforehand. We should have information within the week, and Smolder will bring you to meet me when we do. Until then, you should-”

“I want to search,” Peril interrupted.

Queen Thorn surveyed her with a look that made her want to curl up into a tiny ball while also, somehow, made her want to look as impressive as possible. She settled for not moving.

“How would you be able to do a task that my trained forces can’t?” She asked.

“I’m a SkyWing,” Peril said. “I can fly further and faster than they can, and I know who I’m looking for. I’m going to help in the rescue, so I need to stay fit, and I can’t do that with just sparring.”

“Your majesty,” Scarab muttered under his breath.

“Your majesty,” Peril added.

Thorn considered this. “You may join the aerial guard; if I guess correctly on who Six-Claws will assign, I want you on Coyote’s wing. You will be expected to obey her command, regardless of the situation. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” Peril replied, dipping her head. “Your majesty.”

“Good. Have one of the guards direct you to the barracks.”

It was so clearly a dismissal that Scarab and Bull stood up, turning to leave. Peril trailed behind them, just a few steps, so that it was only her that heard Thorn’s softly-spoken words.

“A SkyWing doesn’t have to call the SandWing Queen their majesty,” she said, her breath a laugh.

And then the door shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oopsie daises sorry for the wait  
> but hey check it out!! here's some fanart of [hawk and scarab by Amanmir on dA](http://www.deviantart.com/amanmir/art/Scarab-and-Hawk-756118451) and a commission of [shai by Fusgia on dA](https://www.deviantart.com/fusgia/art/golden-wings-comm-738206729) that im not sure i've linked to here yet! i've also done a piece of [scarab and hawk](http://www.deviantart.com/iceofwaterflock/art/siri-how-do-i-get-my-bf-off-his-sugar-high-751522424) myself


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